Chapter 132: Food

Chapter 132: Food

“Well,” Noah said, taking a long pause before speaking again. “I just got better.”

“What?” Emily glared at him, scrunching her nose in annoyance. “That’s not an answer! She did give you something, didn’t she? Did you break a Torrin rule, Moxie?”

“Time does a lot too. I was out for three weeks after all. Moxie did help a lot, though.”

“How? I want to know!”

I think she cares a whole lot less about following her family rules than hearing a cool story about how Moxie saved my ass.

“When you’re older,” Moxie said with all the experience of either a teacher or an older sister – and maybe something in between the two. “What matters is that he’s no longer hogging my bed.”

Emily’s eyes widened. “He was sleeping here?”

“Where else did you think he’d be?” Todd asked, shifting to look at Emily with a frown.

“I thought she put him back at night! You can’t have a man over in your room,” Emily stammered. “That’s family rules! I–”

“I’m not main branch,” Moxie said with a laugh. “And, even if I was, I’m older than you are.”

“Not by that much!”

“I can have a man in my room,” Isabel said, waggling her eyebrows in Emily’s direction. “Maybe families are a little overrated.”

“You only say that because you’ve only seen the Linwicks, and they probably tried to kill Magus Vermil,” Emily said, crossing her arms. “Next time you should visit my family. They’re way better.”

Noah caught the flicker of emotion that passed through Moxie’s eyes, but she banished it before anyone else could see. Moxie sent him a warning glance, but Noah didn’t need it. It wasn’t his place to tell Emily the truth about the situation that Moxie was in. Moxie would tell her when she was ready.

“Maybe enough about me,” Noah said gently. “I’ve been worried about all of you as well, you know. We can talk more about me later. I haven’t been able to do much from my bed other than think, and I want to know how the practice for the survival exam is going.”

Isabel’s stomach rumbled. Loudly. All of them paused and turned to look at her, and Isabel’s cheeks and ears lit up a bright red. She looked like a Christmas ornament.

“I’m sorry. I haven’t eaten recently.”

“That’s because Lee can’t cook to save her life,” Todd said with a snicker.

“What? My food is perfectly fine!” Lee exclaimed. “What’s wrong with it?”

“I’m with them. I saw you chewing on a tree branch yesterday,” Emily said.

“Have you ever tried one?”

“Of course I haven’t.”

“Then you don’t know if it tastes good,” Lee proclaimed. “Investigation is the essence of learning.”

She paused, then glanced at Noah. “How was that? It sounded very inspirational in my head.”

“Considerably more inspirational before you asked me how inspirational it was,” Noah said with a roll of his eyes. “I’ll be honest, I’m getting a little hungry myself. Moxie, is there somewhere good to get food on campus?”

Moxie nodded. “I’ll pay for everyone today. I think you’ve all earned it. There’s a nice restaurant near the center of campus called Randiddlen’s. The name is stupid, but they’ve got some pretty good food. I went there when I reached Rank 3. I think you’ll all like it.”This chapter was first shared on the Ñøv€lß1n platform.

***

“Whoa,” Todd breathed, trying and failing to not look like a fish out of water as he craned his neck. Noah felt like he was in the exact same boat.

“Because the Flower Sappers looked really tasty looking,” Lee said with a knowing grin. She tapped her finger on the table, as if that perfectly explained everything. “Survival means getting the most important things for survival.”

Very eloquent.

“Food and power,” Isabel explained. “That’s what you need to survive.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s food, water, and shelter,” Noah said.

“Killing monsters gives two of those things already,” Lee said. “But food is good for feeling good. And you can’t fight well if you don’t feel good. And who needs shelter?”

“What if it rains?” Moxie asked.

Lee stared at her. “Then it rains? It happens. Just pretend you aren’t wet.”

Oh boy. I think I can see exactly how their training went.

“What exactly did all of you do?” Noah asked carefully, trying to keep a grin from forming on his face.

“Killed a whole lot of Flower Sappers,” Isabel said.

“Then Isabel made us stone tents and we camped out,” Todd added. “It was fun. A nice change of pace. The flowers are poisonous, by the way. In case you were wondering.”

“I tested them,” Lee proclaimed. “To make sure they wouldn’t get poisoned.”

“Right,” Noah said. He picked his menu back up and skimmed over it. “That’s good. Did you happen to train any other survival skills?”

“Lee pretended to be a monster and chased us around for a bit,” Emily said. “At random hours of the night, so we were ready to fight wherever and whenever.”

Isabel and Todd both stared at her.

“What?” Todd asked.

Emily frowned. “Why do you look so confused? She said she did it to each of us individually so we’d be ready in case we got separated.”

Lee quickly picked up her menu and buried her nose in it. “What are you going to order, Vermil? Moxie’s paying, right?”

Emily glowered at Lee while Isabel and Todd both struggled to contain their snickers. Moxie just shook her head and let out an amused snort.

“You’re all idiots,” Moxie decided. “But it sounds like it was effective, at least.”

And probably really good for keeping their mind off things. Especially if Isabel and Todd were worried about me. I’m starting to think Lee might be a genius at this kind of thing.

With that, they all fell silent for a few moments as they scanned through the menus. Noah tapped on a few more options to check out what they were, but that first steak he’d seen still had his attention.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a good steak. His dinners on earth had consisted of instant noodles, frozen vegetables, and stale bread from the half-price store. Then, after his death, there just hadn’t been much draw in food.

At least, he hadn’t thought there was. The steak was staring him straight in the eye and calling his name. There wasn’t a price on the menu, which made his instincts scream that it was time to stand up and leave the restaurant, but Moxie had said she’d pay. Since he didn’t know how much anything cost...

It’s now or never. I’m getting the steak.

The others soon came to their own decisions as well, lowering the menus. Eventually, they’d all set them down. Lee continued to stare down the bridge of her nose at the menu as if threatening it to form another image, but it was wise enough to keep itself inert.

The silence was broken by Emily.

“Training with Lee was really fun, but are you going to train us now that Vermil isn’t in your bed anymore?” Emily asked hopefully.

And, of course, it was at that exact moment that the waiter decided to walk up to their table.