A few more uneventful days passed after Eleen Drazah had awoken from her long slumber, but she hadn’t really caused any commotion among the group. None of them had brought up what they discussed with Drim as promised. It was business as usual now, focusing on helping Kada and Xard train up their powers and strength. The only real difference was how Drim responded when asked about starting their plans. He went from responding with ‘soon’ to ‘very soon’, causing much anticipation in the two trainees.

They were now all sitting down for dinner that Phon had prepared for them, using meat that the other three had caught while out hunting. As she was scooping out the bowls, she mentioned, “Oh yeah, I felt an unusual aura when I went to town today.”

“Weird in what way?” Drim asked as he took a full bowl from her.

“Well, their aura was blood-red,” Phon replied. “It was too far for me to make out who it belonged to, but it felt familiar somehow.”

“Is someone having a blood-red aura unusual?” Xard questioned between bites of food.

“Well, from what I’ve seen, it seems people’s auras match the color of their eyes and blood that they would get when they turn into a Fiend,” Phon explained. “I can sort of confirm this with you, Xard. We didn’t meet before you became a Fiend, but we were still in the same city, so I was taking stock of your aura all the time. If someone’s aura changed so drastically, I’d definitely notice. Lesser Fiends don’t have blood-red auras, I’ve never seen anyone with one.”

“What about now? Can you still sense them?” As he asked this, Drim was holding out his bowl as if asking for seconds, having scarfed down his food in mere seconds. Clearly he was quite hungry from the day's activities.

“Hmm, let’s see.” Phon closed her eyes then opened them suddenly, quickly spinning her head towards the direction of the gate. “They’re already—”

At the same time Drim leapt to his feet and yelled, “We have an intruder!”

Kada and Xard turned their heads in the same direction as the Drazahs. There was an outline of a figure in the distance, hard to make out due to the dim light. However, before the two of them could even stand up, the person had closed the gap immensely, already crossing the threshold of the camp site.

“Woah…” Xard muttered.

“So fast…” Kada said in aww.

“Oh, it’s just you,” Phon grumbled, with a very disappointed tone.

“YOUNG MASTER!” the woman yelled as she leapt at Drim. She wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him close. Drim looked panicked, holding his arms in the air, clearly unsure if he should hug her back. The other three seemed just as flustered by the situation as he was.

Drim craned his neck to try and identify his subduer. “Wait… Mallea?”

“So...“ Kada said quietly before suddenly leaping up from her seat, gesturing both of her arms towards Mallea, and looking to Phon as she yelled, “Who on Rathe is this chick?!”

Phon let out a loud groan. “She’s an old maid we used to have when we were kids, who fancies herself our guardian. We, and by we I mean Drim, were worried about whether she was alive or not. As you can see for yourself, she clearly is and apparently completely lacks the ability to move on with her life after all this time.”

Mallea’s whole body shook for a moment at those words, then returned back to a state of calm. She let go of Drim, and stood up tall, with her posture bolstering a professional appearance. She turned to the group and gave a slight bow. “How rude of me, please forgive my poor behavior. My name is Mallea. I used to work as a maid in the Drazah estate and was interim guardian to Drim and to that urchin- I mean to Phon.”

Kada leaned over to Xard and asked in a whisper, “Did she just totally ignore Phon’s introduction of her, then diss her and try to play it off? I like her.”

Xard now ignored Kada’s comment and introduced himself. “I’m Xard Randex and this is Kada Susten. We’re Drim’s friends… well maybe that isn’t the right word… Colleagues? Students? Something along those lines anyways.”

“Nice to meet you Kristina and Xander. I look forward to working with you. I will be returning to my duties as the Drazah personal maid starting today and will extend my services to you all as well when I can,” Mallea announced.

Xard leaned over to Kada this time and whispered, “Did she get our names wrong after we just said them? Are you sure you still like her?”

Kada shrugged and responded, “Who cares, free maid.”

“Uhh, Mallea, are you serious?” Drim questioned her. “I’m ecstatic to see you, but are you sure that’s what you want? Honestly, we’re adults now and have been getting by fine on our own. We can take care of ourselves. You’ll always be welcome to stay and work here if you want, but you could do so as a friend or coworker. You don’t have to force yourself to be our servant.”

“Goodness, Young Master, you really have become a fine and honorable man, just like I knew you would,” Mallea praised him. “However, I must refuse. Ever since that night, it has been my one dream in life to return to your side and serve you once more. I have spent the past twelve years doing my best to develop and hone my skills to be as much use to you as possible. You’re not going to let all my hard work and strife be for nothing, are you?”

Drim had a confused and somewhat guilty expression on his face after hearing that and didn’t respond right away. “There’s something that stinks about this, I’m not sure what, but something’s off with that statement,” Phon spoke up, crossing her legs staring at Mallea intensely. “You said you were working towards returning to us, but we were pronounced dead after the Cosmic Boon. Why would you work so hard for a dream that was impossible? Second, if you were so eager to get back to us why didn’t you come right after we revealed ourselves? I know we weren’t the easiest people to find, but someone with your determination and skills would have managed it.”

“It’s as you said,” Mallea confirmed. “Initially, I did waver a bit. The news of your deaths certainly hit me hard, but somehow I could never bring myself to accept it. I believed that the two of you were still alive out there, I had to. It was the only thing that kept me going. As for why I didn’t come right away, it’s because of the information you divulged. I had my suspicions all this time that you two killed your parents, but that was also hard to accept.”

“When it was confirmed, I started to doubt whether it would be right of me to insert myself into your lives again. I thought... Maybe you wanted to forget all about your past lives… That was until it was announced that you had moved back here. The moment it was, I grabbed what I could carry and headed here immediately.”

“Huh, if all that is true then the news is really behind on our actions,” Phon said, seemingly accepting of what Mallea had to say. “They must be censoring it quite hard. They’ve got us basically trapped here but still feel the need to take such precautions. It’d be amusing if it wasn’t so annoying. As for you, I don’t mind you staying here or being our maid again, but don’t go get any ideas of being Drim’s guardian. Like he said, we’re adults now and can make our own choices, and besides, he has me to take care of him now.”

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

Mallea raised a hand to her mouth and started to fidget in place. Soon, small snickers began to leak through her fingers. It became too much, her hand fell off and she erupted into hysterical laughter. Eventually she calmed down, still chuckling a little as she said, “You?! Take care of him?! That has to be hands down the best joke I’ve ever heard in my entire life. The girl I know wouldn’t be able to take care of a speck of dust.”

“Let’s put you to the test then. If you’re the caretaker, then you made this meal, yes?” Mallea bent down over the fire, and lifted up the lid of the pot. “Oh wow, I can smell the failure already,” she mocked immediately, and then grabbed a nearby spoon to take a bite. “Hmph, well it’s better than I expected, I'll give you that, C-minus. The nutrition is off balance, and the flavor is a far cry from optimal. Have you ever even heard of seasonings, girl?”

“And just who the zjik do you think you are, coming in here and judging my cooking like that?” Phon berated her. “I’ll have you know I’ve been working my ass off to get—”

“Quiet, you ametuer,” Mallea interrupted her. “I’ll have you know that while you were reading Baby’s First Cookbook I was the head chef in a world famous, 9-plaque restaurant. Now I know you haven’t been taught properly in a long time, so be a good little girl and sit there and pay attention. It’s time for a lesson. Thankfully, I picked up a few ingredients before I came here, since I figured my expertise would be needed right away.”

Mallea finally set down the duffle bag that had been hanging off her shoulder this whole time. As she began pulling out various ingredients and utensils, Xard leaned over to Kada and asked, “So what’s a 9-plaque restaurant? Given the context, I assume it’s something impressive.”

“I guess you never took home-ec in school, huh?” Kada jested in response. “There is a ranking scale for restaurants based on how many plaques they’ve earned. Basically, if a restaurant starts getting popular, or receives some buzz, they may get visited by a special critic. Each one of these critics specializes in a different field of restaurant review, and if they like that aspect of the restaurant, they’ll award them a plaque. Also, the critics visit in secret, so no one knows their real identities. The plaque gets mailed to the restaurant afterwards if they’ve won one.”

“I’m not really sure how many different plaques there are in total, but the highest amount a single restaurant had when I learned about them was 11. Apparently, one claimed to have 12, but it was found out they had faked 8 of them. They shut down not long after because of all the negative press. Anyways, the point is that 9 plaques is quite high, probably only a handful of restaurants have gotten that many.”

By the time Kada finished her explanation, Mallea seemed to have finished retrieving all the items she was going to use. She took a deep breath, then her hands erupted into a frenzy. They were zooming around the area: unwrapping food, cutting it into perfect chunks, stirring them into the pot, measuring seasonings, and various other actions that were hard for the eyes to follow. The whole process only took seconds, and before anyone could fully contemplate what had just happened, Mallea had taken a spoonful of the concoction and plunged it into Phon’s slightly agape mouth.

The spoon sat in her mouth for a few seconds, before it finally shifted a bit and then Phon pulled it out of her mouth. “Damn it… it’s good,” Phon grumbled. She then filled up a bowl from the pot, spun around on the bench away from the group, and began eating her meal in defeat. Once the rest topped themselves off with the new batch of food, dinner resumed again. Both Kada and Xard gave high praise towards it, but Mallea didn’t seem to care in the slightest. Her eyes were fixated on Drim.

After he finally noticed her stares, he swallowed and then stammered, “Uhh, it’s great. I guess it’s slightly better than Phon’s if I had to choose between them. I can’t really tell much of a difference, honestly, but thank you for your effort.”

“How… how can this be?!” Mallea began to visibly shake in place. “I improved and refined every aspect of that basic dish. How could it even possibly compare?!” Drim just glanced at her for a moment, shrugged, and then resumed eating with a happy expression.

It was Phon’s turn to be amused now, starting off with a similar chuckle to Mallea’s from before and changing into a diabolical outburst as she spun back around. “There seems to be something you’re unaware of…” Phon proclaimed. “For the past twelve years, Drim has been eating like trash! His taste buds are so stunted that he’d get the same satisfaction from eating roadkill as he would a top-class meal.”

Drim set down his now finished bowl of food and said, “I can neither confirm nor deny this… but if you want to test it I’d be willing to try both.”

“No… No, this is unacceptable!” Mallea bellowed. “Your tastebuds should be just as refined as every other aspect of your life, Young Master! Just wait, I will train your tongue to be able to distinguish even the smallest differences.” Mallea then whirled around to face Phon, “Don’t get cocky just because you had a head start. Clearly, some of my knowledge on Drim is outdated, but I will learn it all again from scratch. Then I will surpass you in every aspect of taking care of him and become the loving caretaker he always deserved!”

Phon leapt up from her seat in a fury. “Tough talk from someone who showed up when things conveniently aligned for her!” She then grabbed the Mallea’s collar and pulled her close, “You wanna go old-maid? You may have your special brain, but I can show you just how superior a Fiend really is!”

As if to rapidly change the subject, and try to avoid the impending chaos, Xard spouted, “So err, Mallea, do you mind telling us more about yourself? Also, do you want us to call you Mallea or would you prefer we use your surname… which, come to think of it, I don’t believe anyone has mentioned what that was.”

Phon was distracted by this interruption, leaving an opening for Mallea. She grabbed Phon’s wrist, and spun under it while simultaneously turning Phon, and forcing her back down to sitting on the bench, and then ended with bowing towards Xard. “My apologies Xane, but Mallea is the only name I’ve ever known. If I have an official surname, I do not know what it is.”

“Why not use Drazah then?” Drim suggested. “You’ve always been like family to us, Mallea, so feel free to use it if you like.”

Mallea pressed a hand against her chest and responded, “It genuinely warms my heart that you think of me in such a way. However, I must refuse. That is the one name I could never have.”

“You should go with Bull,” Kada pitched to them. “Cus, y’know, Mallea B-” She received only blank stares in return. “Oh you people are no fun,” she sulked.

Mallea did her best to not appear as unimpressed as the rest. “Not that Kathy’s name isn’t a fine suggestion, but I do have an alternative to offer. For the past years I’ve used the fake surname ‘Dulip’. If it’s more convenient for everyone that I have one, then I can simply continue using it.”

“Wait! Hold the mawhg up a second!,” Kada yelled to everyone’s surprise. “Do you mean Dulip, as in the Terrifying Temp Duilp?!”

“Uhh yes, some people did use that nickname to address me on occasion,” Mallea responded, a little stunned. “I didn’t realize I had become so famous. I’m surprised that you know of me.”

“You’re a Cosdamn legend in my town,” Kada exclaimed. “Right around my second year of high school, everyone started bringing you up, and the sailors would still go on about you all the time up until I graduated. Honestly, I always thought you were a guy.”

“Sailors you say,” Mallea recounted. “I don’t know where you’re from, but I have worked all over the world; in so many places I can’t remember them all… or any. However, I do distinctly remember working in a port for a month. I started off as a simple dock worker, then moved up to the shipyard, and eventually ended up as the helmsman and first-mate on a warship. The captain wanted me to take over after her, but naturally I refused.”

Kada snickered a bit and then said, “Man, if I ever go back to town I can’t wait to see the look on everyone’s faces when I mention you. But seriously, you were only there a month? To accomplish all that in such a small amount of time, you truly are terrifying. Does this have something to do with that ‘special brain’ Phon mentioned? I’m guessing your mind-blowing cooking skills are from that same track as well.”

“Ah yes, I guess you could say I have a unique way of going about things,” Mallea responded, then seemed to dive into deep thought. “But as for how it came to be… let’s see… it has to be in there somewhere. It was so long ago that it’s hard to remember. Oh, right…! All the people I killed! How could I forget about that? Probably because I don’t care about any of it. Yes, I think I can explain it.”

Phon groaned a bit and then added, “Ugh, I’ll help you out. If we leave it to you, it’ll take hours.”