Arcane Chef - Slice of Life x Adventure LitRPG

Lord Falcone sat at his desk, pouring over paperwork. There really shouldn’t be this much, but it was important he did whatever he needed to do to ensure a kingdom auditor didn’t visit. There was a fine balance between overcharging your subordinates in taxes and their becoming disgruntled, with word spreading.

But he had a lifestyle to maintain. Didn’t they consider that?

He sighed, noticing his butler standing at attention.

“Ah, Leo, thank you. I’m ready for your report,” Lord Falcone said, waving a hand for the man to speak.

“Thank you, Your Grace. I’m happy to report that taxes have been collected. There were a few holdouts claiming insufficient funds, but that’s been dealt with. We also exceeded expectations this year on the draft, with sixteen individuals being sent to the front,” Leo began.

“Good, good. That should make the damn king happy. And what of the new rare class that was discovered? How is he performing?” the Lord asked.

“Well, about that, sir. The evening I was to take him to the kitchens, a representative of the Temple arrived to pick him up due to a prior engagement, and he has not returned,” Leo stated.

Lord Falcone let out a deep sigh. “Has the Temple interfered again? If they are harbouring the boy, get him back here. I’ve had enough of those old bastards interfering in my affairs.”

“Sir, that doesn’t seem to be the case this time. He left with the elder and headed towards the Temple. We’ve had our people look for him in town, and we also checked the inn and residence he was staying at, but it appears the boy has left town,” Leo said in a cold, business-like tone.

“Left town? Why would he do something so foolish? How could he afford it? The notes said he was an orphan just weeks before he was brought here. Whatever. Assign Simon to go find the boy, and if he’s not already dead, return him here. Could you organise the debt paperwork for his time at the orphanage?” Lord Falcone let out a long sigh. “That will be all tonight, Leo. I am weary. Have my dinner prepared, I shall be calling it a night.”

Leo bowed deeply and left the room to do as instructed.

“Why would an orphan run? What is he hiding?” Lord Falcone mumbled before returning to the paperwork in front of him.

Lukas had been having a rough couple of weeks. Ever since he saw that asshole Trevor at the inn.

He didn’t want to be seen mingling with someone working in an inn kitchen. So, he did what any self-respecting uncommon adventurer would do—he just ignored him.

Well, that all backfired. He was being blamed for the terrible food they had received. Even when the party returned a couple of weeks later, they were given nothing but stale bread and watered-down ale. The owner even had the nerve to say they had run out, while serving stew to all the other tables around them.

Then, the leader of the party blamed it all on him!

Apparently, that was their favourite inn, and they went there often. Honestly, Lukas thought it was a pretty rubbish place. But now, the difference in food costs was being taken out of his earnings, which meant he was getting no pay at all.

After that day, things just became miserable. Everyone in the party had been treating him like a servant—nothing more than dead weight. Everywhere they went, he had to clean the horses, pack the bags, set up camp, start the campfire, and collect the wood. Didn’t they know he was the best swordsman of his year?

The only saving grace in all of it was that he was level 9, and he knew that idiot Trevor at the inn would be at best level 3, probably still level 1, he laughed to himself.

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He couldn’t imagine working in such a shit-hole town at a terrible inn. At least somebody had it worse than he did.

He’d show them all.

He was the greatest adventurer, and they would all regret treating him this way. Trevor would regret causing all this to begin with. If he’d have stayed in the kitchen where he belonged, I wouldn’t be treated this way.

Micca had been having a great couple of weeks. Inspired by Trevor, she had completely cleaned up her house and had plans to sell it to get some starting capital so she could finally live her dream of becoming a travelling merchant!

She also had a great laugh a couple of weeks ago when the Lord’s men came into her home looking for Trevor and found nothing but a dusty mess. Then, when they arrived at the inn—likewise searching everywhere and pissing off the locals by disrupting everything—they left empty-handed.

To top off that good mood, the boy who upset Trevor arrived again with his party. After explaining what she knew about the situation to Larry (which may have been embellished just a little), Larry refused to serve them any food that day. Instead, he gave them two-day-old bread that was meant to be turned into breadcrumbs.

The look on their stupid faces made it all worth it. Treat her friend Trevor badly, will you? Not on her watch!

Surprisingly, Larry had been very supportive of her goal to become a merchant. The next time Troy and Saddie came through town, he would speak to them and see if he could organise a mentorship of sorts. And if that didn’t work out, she thought maybe she’d head to Boltron as well and meet up with Trevor again. She was sure he’d find the situation with his old friend hilarious.

All Larry asked for in return was that she help train her replacement—and that was absolutely no problem!

The future had never looked so bright, and to think all of this started just from meeting that boy. She really hoped he was doing well, but it would be okay. She’d see him soon anyway.

This had been the hardest month of George’s life.

It was nothing like what he had expected. After leaving the academy, he was taken to the barracks, where he was fitted with a uniform—well, the term ”fitted” is used loosely here. It fit just enough so that it wouldn’t fall off.

Then, he had a spear shoved in his hand, regardless of what weapon he had trained with or was best at, and was beaten constantly under the guise of ‘instruction.’

Then they left the town, and what came next was even worse. From sunup to sundown, they were forced to march south. In the evening, they were given a ration that made his orphanage meals look like a feast. After that, there was more training before they were allowed to sleep. Then they did it all again the next day. If anyone fell down during the march, they were force-fed a stamina potion, beaten, and then made to continue. For the unlucky boy who tried to run... well, he hadn’t seen him wake up again.

Apparently, they were heading to Portland, where they would board a boat and eventually arrive at a city called Lands End, which was to be the last city before the front line itself. On the way, though, they were stopping at villages and towns to collect more recruits. So far, the group had close to two hundred people marching south.

They were still several months away from reaching Portland, but already he could see that this was vastly different from what the academy had told them. There was no honour or glory here; none of them felt like they were serving a greater purpose. They all dreaded what was to come when they finally made it to the front.

He really hoped his friends Trevor and Lukas were doing better than he was. He felt bad about how he left things with Trevor, but Lukas insisted it was better for him to sort things out on his own—that they had their own troubles to deal with. Still, he couldn’t help but feel that not even saying a proper goodbye was a terrible thing to do.

He didn’t have many regrets in his short life, but he could say without a shred of doubt that this would be one of them, and any hope of fixing that mistake was vanishing one step at a time.

Lily didn’t know what drew her to this human boy. There was just something about him—a pull, a draw...

She’d been watching him for half a cycle at this point. In the past, she had never liked humans—or any other races for that matter. In the thousands of cycles she had lived, they were always destructive and arrogant. They took everything and gave nothing. They destroyed her forest constantly, and up until that point, she would have liked nothing more than to eradicate them from the lands near her home.

And if not for the destruction their kind would bring to her forest in retribution, it would have been done already. It wasn’t her own well-being she was worried about, but the other inhabitants who called it home.

But something, something she couldn’t put her paw on, drew her to this particular boy...

Even as she watched him from the shadows, she had no idea what that reason was. His food was good, and she felt incredibly powerful after he gave her some, but that wasn’t the only reason. No, there was something else, like a purpose.

When she watched them fight those weak birds, and that silly human child got caught, there was a pull on her very soul, telling her to save him. She couldn’t describe it. In the past, she would have never, not even for a single moment, have considered saving a human. In fact, if it were a cycle ago, she would have sooner killed them for the weak birds.

Even that silly lizard on his little mountain made his little show to warn her, but she wasn’t here for his oh-so-precious lizard-kin. The scales made for poor snacks... Well, maybe if the boy cooked one? Her thoughts trailed off.

But she followed and observed, her thoughts a mess as she watched him enter the large human settlement. She always laughed at that—like those walls would protect them. Didn’t they know that providing shadows so readily would give weapons to their enemies? But alas, she was not here to end them. No, she’d continue to watch the boy... and if she just so happened to get a snack or two, that would be perfect.

She needed to find out why she was drawn to this child, a human.