Chapter 100: Millionaire’s Gambit
The System chimed, small and insistent, while Marron was still rubbing sleep from her eyes.
DING!
A translucent window bloomed in her vision.
[Marron Louvel — Status Update] Class: Combat Chef Level: 12 XP: 850 Gold: 1,185
Inventory Highlights:
Phantasm Moss (fresh) Storage box Bone Shard Dusty Dwarven Journal Hot plate
She stared at the numbers, then blinked them away. No flashy level-up this morning. No new titles. Just the moss sitting on the counter like a patient promise.
She rolled out the simple morning routine anyway. Egg cracked into a pan, yolk pooled and held, bread warmed until the crumbs sighed. It was small, a human thing: sugar on the tongue, heat in the belly, the steady cadence of hands working. Her mother’s careful instructions haunted her sometimes—lessons learned over a wooden table back home, back when the diner mattered enough to perfect every detail. When Marron had still been there to notice the difference between good and perfect.
The memory steadied and stung in equal measure: her mother’s ritual for the worst nights. A warm mug, a sweet slice, the kind of comfort that let a child sleep through storms. "A treat and a cup, little bird. Then sleep comes easy."
But after Marron left for the Guild, her mother’s millionaire’s slices had gotten simpler. Still good—her mother’s hands never forgot their skill—but without that meticulous love, the extra minute of stirring that made caramel silk instead of sugar. Her mother had kept the diner, but her heart had moved on to other things. Smaller things. Quieter things.
Marron finished her breakfast, wiped the pan, and set the moss out like a study specimen. The bone shard at her hip pulsed warm against her leg—not the Lieutenant’s cold warning she’d grown used to, but something warmer. Something that felt almost like approval.
The plan had two parts.
One, brew Stealth Broth EX for herself—a thicker, stronger cloak than her last batch so she could move through patrols without drawing eyes. Two, put the mimics into a drowsy, satisfied stupor long enough for her to slip away. Heavy dessert and sleep-inducing flower tea. If sugar could soothe a restless child, maybe an over-rich treat and slow, floral infusion could drag a mimic’s thin stolen body into sleep.
She opened the System’s storefront with a quiet command.
"Convenient Store," she muttered.
A small menu unfurled.
[Convenient Store Access Granted] Available: Butter, Sugar, Flour, Condensed Milk, Dark Chocolate, Milk, Drowsy-Flower Bundle Prices adjusted for dungeon import.
She almost laughed at the name—Convenient Store, not Convenience—but she didn’t have time for jokes. She selected what she needed: butter, sugar, flour, condensed milk, dark chocolate, and a small bundle of drowsy-flowers. The System confirmed the purchase and the goods shimmered into her storage box.
[Purchase Confirmed — Gold Spent: 120] [Remaining Gold: 1,065]
She laid everything out: moss, butter wrapped pale and firm, sugar clinking, chocolate that smelled like warmth and memory. The bone shard pulsed again, and this time she was certain—it wasn’t warning her away from this choice. It was encouraging her forward.
First, the broth.
Marron rinsed the Phantasm Moss in cool water, feeling its leaves quiver. She set a large iron pot on the hot plate, added water and mild roots from her stores, then dropped the moss in and turned the flame low. Tiny curls of steam rose, carrying a scent like green shade and wet stone.
As it steeped, she turned to dessert. Millionaire’s slices: shortbread base, thick caramel, chocolate top. Components designed to make the body settle into pleasure so full it tipped toward sleep. She began with muscle memory—butter and sugar creamed until the mixture smelled like her mother’s kitchen on the good days. Flour folded in, dough pressed and blind-baked until the edges went golden.
While the base cooled, she made the caramel. Condensed milk and sugar, gently heated until the color shifted from pale gold to deep amber. It thickened with patience, the way her mother had taught her, before the Guild, before perfection became performance instead of love.
The bone shard grew warmer with each step, as if it approved of the care she was taking. As if it understood that this wasn’t just cooking—it was transformation. Mother’s lullaby becoming weapon.
She melted the chocolate in a double boiler, stirring until the sheen was mirror-smooth. While it cooled slightly, she prepared the drowsy-flower tea: petals steeped with condensed milk until the liquid held the promise of deep, dreamless sleep.
The mimics had begun to gather, drawn by the sweet aromas. Their stolen faces turned toward her with hungry brightness, voices braiding into harmony: "Chef will make feast. Warm cup. Sweet bite."
The Lieutenant watched from the corner, arms folded. When their eyes met, something flickered across his expression—a moment of doubt, sharp as a blade’s edge. She could see him calculating: was this compliance or defiance? Then his shoulders settled, decision made. He would trust her. This once.
Marron sliced the millionaire’s bars into perfect rectangles, each one wrapped in oil cloth. She kept three for herself and arranged the rest on a tray beside the clay pot of drowsy tea.
"On one condition," she said, meeting the Lieutenant’s gaze. "No one leaves this room until everyone drinks and eats. Promise me that."
The head mimic clicked its throat in agreement. The Lieutenant’s eyes narrowed for just a heartbeat, then he inclined his head. "Do it," he said. "Then go."
She distributed the treats, watching as the first mimic bit down with exaggerated pleasure. The drowsy-flowers worked slowly—warmth creeping from limbs to chest, eyelids growing heavy as curtains.
The Lieutenant took his portion of yesterday’s ant roast, as promised—no tricks, no substitutions. He ate with careful patience and accepted a small cup of the tea, though she’d brewed it weak for him. When he drank, his shoulders lost just a fraction of their carved tension. Alert still, but calmer.
One by one, the patrol succumbed. Forks clattered to stone. Voices that had been chorus turned to murmured contentment, then silence. They sagged into comfortable heaps, breathing deep and regular.
Marron moved among them like a ghost, tucking oil cloths over shoulders, corking jars. The Lieutenant watched with something approaching respect—the unspoken bargain sealed.
She pulled the flask of Stealth Broth EX from her apron. The bone shard pulsed once, warm and steady, like a heartbeat. Like encouragement.
"One sip," she told herself. "Keep your wits."
She poured two small swallows into the cap and drank. The broth slid warm and green down her throat, and the world softened at the edges. She could feel the cloak knitting around her, making her footsteps lighter, her outline less defined.
She packed her emergency slices, secured the flask, and gathered her knives. At the doorway she paused, looking back at the sleeping forms and the pale Lieutenant watching her with calculating calm.
Then forward, toward the corridor that wound deeper.
Her mother’s voice echoed in the smallest corner of memory: "A treat and a cup, little bird. Then sleep comes easy." She’d turned lullaby into weapon, comfort into strategy. The bone shard pulsed approval against her hip.
Marron stepped into the hall—
And froze.
The sound reached her first: wheels on stone, the familiar creak and rattle of a food cart being pushed over uneven ground. Her cart. But that wasn’t possible. Her cart was somewhere deeper in the dungeon, with the core, with—
She pressed herself against the wall as torchlight approached. The bone shard had gone cold against her leg, its warmth replaced by urgent warning.
Around the corner came the Captain, broad shoulders hunched with effort as he pushed the cart. The same cart she’d loaded with supplies days ago, the same cart she’d been separated from when the dungeon’s paths had shifted and changed.
But it wasn’t empty now.
Chained to the handle, stumbling alongside in the half-light, was a figure in Guild whites. A young woman with flour-dusted hands and desperate eyes, her chef’s hat askew, her face streaked with tears and dungeon grime.
Marron’s heart stopped.
It was an unfamiliar face, but she could imagine that this woman was somebody’s friend in the guild. Someone trained beside this woman, and probably shared stories over many late-night shifts.
Probably even understood how it felt to feed ungrateful customers, too.
There was a little nametag on the girl’s apron, and so Marron knew her name.
Elena Vasquez.
She was now chained to Marron’s cart. A substitute for a chef that the Captain did not have.
The Captain’s eyes swept the corridor as he passed, but the Stealth Broth held. He didn’t see her pressed against the stone, didn’t notice her shallow breathing or the way her knives trembled in her grip.
But Elena did.
For just a moment, their eyes met across the torchlit space. Elena’s mouth opened in recognition, in hope, in a plea Marron couldn’t hear but understood perfectly: Help me. Save me. Don’t leave me here.
Then they were past, the cart’s wheels fading into the distance, carrying Elena deeper into the dungeon’s hungry depths.
Marron stood frozen in the shadows, the bone shard ice-cold against her hip, her mother’s lullaby turned to ash in her memory.
She’d escaped.
But someone else was paying the price.