The Anomaly's Path

I walked into the bathroom, turned on the shower, and let the cold water wash away the sweat and tension from my training. After drying off, I put on loose black trousers and a plain grey shirt.

I left my room and walked down the quiet hallway. My stomach growled loudly.

As a ranker grows stronger, controlling hunger becomes much easier. You can go days without a proper meal if your core is filled with mana.

But that doesn’t mean your body stops needing real nutrients, especially after a training session that completely emptied your reserves. The training takes a physical toll, and skipping meals at this point was just bad for my health.

Besides, I was craving something specific. Something incredibly spicy, but maybe with a hint of something sweet and bitter.

I let out a dry laugh at my own joke. Sweet and bitter. Just like my current life.

I had some chocolate in my void pocket, but they would not do anything to stop the emptiness in my stomach. I needed real food.

I stepped into the elevator and pressed the button for the ground floor.

My destination was the main dining hall of the building. It was a hall only for the Top 10 students from all three years.

The hall was big and nice, with long wooden tables, soft chairs, and tall windows overlooking the academy grounds. At night, floating lamps drifted near the ceiling, casting warm light across the room. A fireplace burned with flames that never needed wood. The air always smelled like fresh bread and herbs.

I rarely ever ate in this hall. Usually, Lyra brought my meals directly to my room because she knew me, or I just grabbed lunch with Roan and Alice in the crowded academy cafeteria.

Because it was the middle of the night, I expected the hall to be completely empty. Nobody in the Top 10 spent their late hours lingering in the dining area.

...Or so I thought.

_

The elevator doors slid open with a soft hiss, and the quiet of the ground floor hit me immediately. I walked down the short hallway toward the open kitchen area at the back of the hall. But right before I reached the counter, I stopped.

Someone else was already there.

It was Seris.

She wasn’t wearing her usual neat academy uniform or her plain black trousers. Instead, she was dressed in tight, dark gray training gear that showed her lean figure, with a thin white jacket zipped halfway up.

Her long ink-black hair was tied back in a loose ponytail, though several strands had escaped, clinging to the side of her neck. There were faint beads of sweat still glistening on her forehead and collarbone, making it obvious she had just come straight from training.

She was standing right next to the counter, holding a glass of cold water. Just as I took another step, her head snapped directly toward me. Her crimson eyes locked onto mine instantly. She had sensed my presence the exact moment I turned the corner.

We stood there in the dim light of the floating mana-lamps, just staring at each other.

”...”

”...”

The silence stretched between us for a long, awkward moment. She didn’t move away, and I didn’t back up. She simply took a slow sip from her glass, her eyes never leaving my face. Her expression was completely blank, but there was a quiet curiosity in her gaze.

Seris was the one to break the silence. She blinked her deep crimson eyes, her expression completely flat. ”...You came here to eat?”

”Well... something like that,” I said, walking past her to open a cabinet. ”My core is empty, and my stomach won’t stop complaining. What about you? Just getting water?”

Seris set her glass down on the counter with a soft click. She looked at the giant rows of empty stoves, then back at me. ”I was training in the hall below and got hungry. I wanted to try something.”

”Try what?” I asked, pulling out red spices, dried noodles, and a slab of cured meat. I had already decided to make a quick, very spicy stir-fry to wake myself up.

She pointed a pale finger at the counter space further down the line. ”Cooking...”

I paused, a chunk of meat halfway out of the cabinet. I slowly turned my head to look at her.

”You?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

”Yes,” she said, dead serious. ”The staff leaves food in the back. I’ve seen other students do it. It doesn’t look hard. You put things together, cook it, and eat.”

”That is the most dangerous description of cooking I have ever heard,” I muttered, setting my ingredients down on my side of the counter. The kitchen was massive, with enough room for five people to cook at once without bumping into each other, so I figured she couldn’t do too much damage if she stayed on her side.

”You can watch if you want,” Seris added, her voice flat as she walked to the storage area. ”I’ll start with something simple.”

”Go ahead,” I said, leaning against the counter. ”Show me what the Rank 1 of the second year can do.”

She didn’t hesitate. She walked into the storage area and came out holding a big bag of flour, a carton of eggs, and a jar of thick sugar syrup. She dropped them on the counter with a loud thud. Then, she picked up a large metal bowl.

What followed was pure chaos.

Seris didn’t use a measuring cup. She just tore open the bag of flour and poured a huge pile of it straight into the bowl. A big cloud of white dust burst up, covering her nose and the front of her jacket. She didn’t even blink. She just stood there in the white cloud, staring down at the bowl like it was an enemy.

Then, she grabbed an egg. Instead of cracking it on the edge of the bowl, she squeezed her hand.

Crack.

The egg smashed completely in her palm, the yolk and white goo dripping through her fingers, along with several pieces of sharp shell.

”...”

She stared at her messy hand, her crimson eyes blinking slowly. ”The shell was weaker than I thought.”

I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing out loud. ”You’re supposed to tap it, Seris. Not crush it like a mana stone.”

”I fixed my grip,” she said flatly.

She wiped her hand, grabbed another egg, and tapped it on the bowl’s edge. This time it worked, but she accidentally dropped the empty shell into the flour. She didn’t bother removing it. She just poured the whole jar of sugar syrup on top.

”What exactly are you trying to make?” I asked, watching her grab a massive wooden spoon.

”...Cake,” she stated.

She started stirring. Because her strength was much higher than a normal person’s, the spoon moved at crazy speed.

Whack! Whack! Whack!

The thick dough flew everywhere. Wet flour splashed out of the bowl, landing on the polished wood, the floor, and even a little on her cheek. The counter became a total mess within seconds. Three pots were sitting out randomly where she had looked for a pan, and the whole area looked like a small explosion had hit a kitchen.

But the real disaster came when she moved to the stove. She dumped the sticky, shell-filled dough into a shallow pan and put it on the enchanted burner.

”It needs heat,” she murmured.

She reached out and pushed the mana-button on the stove. But instead of letting it work on its own, she accidentally sent a spark of her Lunar power straight into the burner to make it go faster. The heating part turned bright red. Then orange. Then white.

Boom!

A loud, sharp pop echoed through the dining hall. A thick cloud of black, bitter smoke burst out of the burner, swallowing the pan completely.

The dough turned into a burnt, black lump in seconds, and a loud hiss of burning sugar filled the air. The protective runes on the kitchen wall glowed bright, trying to absorb the sudden blast of heat before the stove could break.

Seris flinched back a step, her face blank through the smoke, though her ponytail was now lightly covered in gray ash.

I stared at the scene, rubbing the bridge of my nose.

I realized something right then. Almost everyone I knew was terrible at cooking. Roan would probably just eat raw food. Riven wouldn’t care as long as it had meat. Caster would try to pay someone else to do it.

Arthur was useless in the kitchen. The noble girls weren’t any better. Maybe Julia or Malva knew how to cook since they grew up as commoners, but looking at the girl in front of me, she was completely lost.

She was just staring at the pan, genuinely confused about where everything went wrong.

It was really funny. Seeing the terrifying, socially awkward Rank 1 of the second year — the Apostle of the Moon — completely defeated by a stove was a rare sight. But watching her clumsy moves, I realized I never got tired of seeing this side of her.

I walked up to the counter and gently pushed a misplaced bowl out of the way.

”...Lady Seris,” I said, my voice calm. ”Tell me one thing and be honest with me.”

She looked up at me, tilting her head.

”Do you... by any chance, do you actually know how to cook? Have you ever successfully made a meal in your life?”

”...”

She didn’t say a word. She just stared at me with her wide, crimson eyes, holding a wooden spoon like a weapon.

That was answer enough. I let out a heavy sigh, stepped forward, and took the spoon right out of her hand. I started clearing the mess, wiping down the stray flour and putting the burnt pan into the sink.

”Go sit at the table,” I ordered gently, pointing toward the long wooden tables in the center of the hall. ”I will cook. Otherwise, you are going to blast the kitchen apart, and I actually want to eat tonight.”

She blinked, hovering in place for a second. ”I can help...”

”No,” I cut her off immediately. ”Just go sit down.”

She went quiet, then slowly walked over to the nearest table and sat down, watching me with a steady gaze.

I looked through the available ingredients in the large storage cabinets. ”What do you want to eat? I’m making something spicy for myself, but I can make something else if you want.”

Seris placed a pale finger against her chin, thinking deeply. Her eyes drifted toward the ceiling as she processed the question.

”Cake,” she said simply.

Before I could even respond, she kept going. ”And sweet biscuits. And the chocolate pudding. And the honey cakes. And those little sugar-coated pastries they sell near the market. And the caramel-filled ones too.”

I stopped looking through the cabinets and turned around to stare at her. Every single item she named was a heavy, sugary dessert.

Seeing my expression, Seris tilted her head to the side, her black hair shifting over her shoulder. ”Ah... did I tell less?”

I internally groaned. Less? Is she serious?

Damn it, I shouldn’t have asked this food-obsessed woman. If I tried to bake all of that from scratch, the sun would come up before we even took one bite.

And the good ingredients in this fancy kitchen weren’t free — they cost academy credit points to unlock from the storage. She was basically asking me to spend a lot of points just to feed her midnight sugar craving.

I stood there, lost in my own thoughts about how ridiculous the situation was.

”Leo?” she called out, her voice breaking my train of thought.

I cleared my throat and turned back to the counter. ”I’m sorry, but I can’t make all of that. Mainly because it will take way too long, and I’m starving. I will look at what we actually have right now and see what I can prepare.”

I glanced back over my shoulder. Seris was looking at me with a slightly sad, disappointed face. She looked exactly like a cat that had just been told it couldn’t have a treat.

I chuckled softly and turned back to the ingredients. It was a ridiculous look for someone so powerful — and honestly, a little cute. But I sighed and rolled up my sleeves anyway, pulling out some basic flour, eggs, and spices.

”Just wait there,” I told her, setting a clean pan onto the stove. ”I will make something simple.”