Chapter 35: A Cook’s Quandary

“…Alright, the soup is simmering. While it’s cooking, I’ll prepare these other dishes, and then I can rest for a bit.”

Rena stretched her wrist, leveraging her chopping posture, as the cleaver in her hand carved a beautiful, silvery arc through the air.

Soon after, the ingredients on the cutting board were meticulously sliced into uniform strips, which Rena then organized into separate plates.

Preparing lunch for a family of four, plus a cat, was no small feat for one person.

It became an especially monumental task considering the wildly divergent tastes of the four individuals, with merely deciding what dishes to cook each day consuming a significant amount of mental energy.

Nevertheless, Rena single-handedly accomplished all these tasks flawlessly.

Though Xia Ranxin had offered to help earlier, Lin, who accompanied her, proved far too boisterous—or perhaps, too much of an eyesore.

Consequently, Rena opted to manage everything on her own, decisively ushering both “helpers” out.

She had grown quite accustomed to life here, or rather, she had fully embraced and become reliant on this world’s way of living.

This thought prompted Rena, who had finally found a moment of respite, to sigh involuntarily.

“I didn’t originally stay in this world to become a full-time cook…”

Malik, one of the Kingdom’s most dangerous fugitives and a truly heinous criminal, was currently hiding somewhere within this city.

Rena had remained here precisely to apprehend that culprit.

Yet now, the investigation into Malik had been indefinitely postponed.

Rena, a glorious Royal Knight, found herself ensnared by the mundane demands of daily life—the firewood, rice, oil, and salt—trapped within this house, tethered to Bai Zhi’s side.

What was even more troubling was that while she would occasionally reflect on her situation when alone, just as she was doing now, she invariably found herself immersed in those trivialities again after a short while.

Though she wouldn’t admit it aloud, Rena vaguely realized she was deliberately procrastinating the pursuit of Malik, almost as if in avoidance.

After all, once Malik was captured, she would no longer have any legitimate reason to remain in this world.

At this thought, Rena was suddenly overcome with a wave of anxiety, so profound that she only noticed the simmering soup had lifted the pot lid after the fact.

“Ah, trouble!”

She hadn’t immediately realized the soup in the pot was boiling over.

Rena scrambled to her feet, flustered, lifted the pot lid, poured a small bowl of cold water into the vigorously boiling soup, and then reduced the heat to a simmer.

Only then did she settle back down.

“Right, this isn’t the time to dwell on such matters. Malik is incredibly cunning; they won’t be easily caught.”

After hastily glossing over her inner turmoil with an excuse she herself barely believed, Rena shifted her focus to the plan Bastet had proposed that morning for confronting the Shadow Beast.

To be honest, she wasn’t particularly fond of this battle plan.

To Rena, the plan felt overly aggressive and fraught with peril, especially since failure would mean sacrificing Xia Ranxin, who was meant to be the bait.

Although Rena and Xia Ranxin had only known each other for a few days, and their acquaintance wasn’t particularly deep, this didn’t diminish Rena’s considerable fondness for the resilient girl.

However, if Xia Ranxin were to truly die before her eyes, Rena knew she would likely sink into a despondent state for days.

Xia Ranxin’s death would bring even herself such profound sorrow.

What, then, of Bai Zhi?

Over this period, she felt she had come to understand Bai Zhi remarkably well.

Bai Zhi was an individual possessed of an intense sense of responsibility, a trait that had driven her for years to apprehend otherworldly beings who strayed into the city, even as her own life became a chaotic mess as a result.

After all, Bai Zhi could have simply pretended nothing was amiss and lived her life in peace.

Thus, whenever Rena considered the possibility that the operation might fail, and the Shadow Beast would ultimately devour Xia Ranxin… she couldn’t help but wonder how Bai Zhi, who had once vowed to save Xia Ranxin, would react.

The thought sent a sudden, dull ache through her chest, as if an invisible thorn had pricked her.

It wasn’t fatal, but it was deeply unsettling.

Perhaps she should speak with Bai Zhi, to persuade her to abandon this overly audacious battle plan.

Rena contemplated this, but swiftly dismissed the notion.

She knew with certainty that she couldn’t devise a better solution than the one Bastet had put forth.

Bastet was not wrong about one thing: since the emergence of the Shadow Beast, there had been no recorded instance of anyone targeted by it successfully surviving.

To be marked by the Shadow Beast was tantamount to a death sentence, a widely accepted truth in Granzenias.

Even without such a bold and aggressive plan, Xia Ranxin would inevitably fall victim to the Shadow Beast sooner or later; this fact remained immutable.

“Damn it, if only Commander Jeremiah were still alive now, I could ask him how he banished the Shadow Beast all those years ago.”

Rena rubbed her temples, a mixture of frustration and anxiety clouding her expression.

The “Commander” she referred to was, naturally, Jeremiah Myers, the former head of the Radiant Knights and the most formidable Radiant Knight in the history of the Kingdom of Gloucester.

He had also been Rena’s mentor when she first joined the knighthood, a figure akin to a father in the hearts of her generation of knights.

Thirteen years prior, Jeremiah, then a mere unknown rookie knight who had just joined the order, had, during a mission, stumbled upon a Shadow Beast alone.

Miraculously, he had managed to banish the Shadow Beast from the material world.

Subsequently, this remarkable feat propelled his rapid ascent within the Radiant Knights, and he soon became the youngest commander in the Kingdom’s history.

If Commander Jeremiah were still alive, Rena would only need to find a way to return to the Kingdom to consult him, and perhaps a more secure strategy for dealing with the Shadow Beast could be devised.

Regrettably, however, Jeremiah was dead, having perished two years ago during the Kingdom’s war against the Crimson Moon Clan.

This memory caused Rena to clench her fists involuntarily.

“If it weren’t for those ungrateful wretches, Commander Jeremiah wouldn’t have…” Rena muttered under her breath.

Even as she spoke, a question spontaneously arose in her mind.

Was the situation truly as she understood it—that the Crimson Moon Clan had betrayed the Kingdom and initiated the war?

In the past, she had believed this implicitly, but now, having met Lin, who belonged to that clan, and having learned more about the Crimson Moon Clan from Bastet, she found her understanding of the events’ origins somewhat shaken.

After all, she truly couldn’t comprehend how a family willing to abandon everything to live in seclusion in the wilderness, all to repay a kindness, could suddenly bare its fangs at the very Kingdom that had benevolently taken them in.

Yet, the idea of suspecting the Kingdom of wrongdoing was something she simply could not accept.

On one hand, it was the place where she had grown up, and Rena had always maintained complete trust in the Kingdom.

On the other hand, everyone in the Kingdom was bound by The Way of the Holy Light, which implied that all accounts of the war post-conflict had to be entirely accurate and truthful.

After all, during the Kingdom’s post-war intelligence summary, there had indeed been no reported instances of anyone being burned to death by pale flames.

“Hmm… one side couldn’t possibly lie, and the other couldn’t possibly betray, so how could this possibly be…”

The more Rena pondered, the more agitated she became.

Countless thoughts surged within her mind, like violent fledglings just learning to fly, wildly striking at their kin in the air, creating a chaotic scene.

The sky seemed increasingly fragile, and Rena’s thoughts became a tangled mess.

Just as the situation threatened to spiral out of control, a sharp, crisp sound shattered everything in her mind.

A faint blush spread across Rena’s left cheek, and upon closer inspection, distinct finger marks were visible.

She had forcefully jolted herself awake through a violent act.

“I got sidetracked dwelling on things. I really need to focus on this operation.”

Rena stood up as she spoke.

She took a deep breath, as if finally having made a firm decision.

Indeed, she still needed to speak with Bai Zhi and persuade her to reconsider the plan.

Regardless, Rena absolutely did not want to witness Bai Zhi’s tearful, anguished state should the operation fail.

With these thoughts firmly in mind, Rena resolutely walked out of the kitchen.