She brought him downstairs into the kitchen. And pointed towards a nearby table.

Tibaut had to rub his eyes and get a better look around his surroundings.

"Why are we in the kitchen?" He asked.

"Because it's a part of the ritual, now sit down."

He shrugged his shoulders and walked towards the table, pulling a seat out for himself. He noticed something cooking and the smell was quite pleasant. It smelt like a meat dish.

"Oh, are we finishing the rabbit you have left in the chest?" Tibaut asked.

"Chiller, and no that was finished before we left. The smoked and dried meat is baking right now, but it should work since the translation only said meat."

"Translation? (I mean it looked pretty easy to read.) Is this part of the ritual?"

"Yes, though I'm not pleased I had to use the last of some spices I had to make this."

As Tibaut began to slowly wake up, he noticed the room feeling… odd. It felt oddly humid. It surprised him that the warmth of the flame wasn't making the room unbearable.

"Hey, Elizabeth, can you open a window or something? The air in here feels strange."

"Use your head Tibaut. What do you think could be the reason for this?" She answered unamused. She had gotten closer to the flame of the oven and was watching very closely.

"(What are you being pissy about?) I dunno, did you turn in here into a makeshift saun-" Before Tibaut could make his witty remark, he realised the air itself was starting to look odd as well.

"Is this mana?" He asked.

"Correct, the ritual called for the eating of the pie to take place, somewhere cooking is done that is exceptionally mana-rich."

"The pie? Wait a minute, releasing mana is used for more than defence?"

Elizabeth surprisingly answered this question without much annoyance in her tone. "Yes, I suppose if you had never done a ritual before it would seem a bit odd but some do take advantage of having an area rich in mana. I have no idea why they didn't use any of those runes we've learned about but I suppose this might have come from a time without the use of such techniques."

Elizabeth seemed equally puzzled by the creator of the ritual using their mana like this which left Tibaut shocked that he had said something that made sense.

Elizabeth soon pulled out tongs and used them to pull something out of the oven. It was a metal pot with its lid and she hurriedly walked to the table to place it down.

She used the tong to take the lid off and revealed a pastry of some kind with writing on top of it.

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("She mentioned pie, so is it a meat pie? This would usually be called a shepherd's pie in my own world. Or was it cottage pie? I think it'd just be called a meat pie because a specific type of meat is associated with the other two. Plus this has pastry on the top of it. Actually, this has nothing to do with eithe-")

"Eat it." She told him. "And make it quick, the details stated it has to be eaten in the darkness of the morning."

("So that's why she woke me up so early. Couldn't the guy who made this, make it a more convenient time?")

He grabbed a fork and looked at the writing on top of the pie.

"Have a grand feast!"

It showed.

"How subtle," Tibaut remarked as he looked at it.

Elizabeth raised an eyebrow when he said that and before she could ask, he began eating away at it.

"It's a bit salty."

"Blame the ritual," Elizabeth responded.

Although a bit salty the flavour wasn't bad at all. He continued eating until he felt the mana in the room lessen.

As he stopped to look around she spoke up.

"Don't worry and continue eating. There was a reason for the mana being here in the first place."

He continued until finishing it.

"Ugh, got any water?"

She pointed to a nearby barrel and he quickly picked a cup up and scooped some out.

The flavour initially was enjoyable but as it went on the salt became overbearing and even stung his tongue.

After gulping down the water, he looked at her expectantly. There were several loaves of bread on the table in addition to the dried meat.

"So when is something gon-"

He felt his stomach rumble.

("What the hell, how am I hungry after I've just eaten.")

"Please hurry and begin eating. If you aren't careful, you could end up in a worse state than you did after you fought that noble. (I'd guess anyway)"

His stomach quickly began voicing its displeasure and he ran over to the table and began scarfing down anything he could get his hands. It continued until daylight and left Elizabeth staring at him wide-eyed.

"I knew it would promote appetite but this is beyond my expectations." She commented. In this one feast, he had finished half of their flour with the amount of bread he consumed and ⅔ of the dried meat that had been left.

("Ugh, I'll have to go scavenging to find an alternative for the bread. The rabbits shouldn't be too hard to find but I'll ask him where he found the rabbits just in case.") She thought while looking at the empty table in chagrin. "Are you satisfied?" She asked.

"Yeah, I am. But it felt so weird eating this much food."

"I suppose that will do. Time to work off any excess food you've consumed."

Someone soon walked into the room. It was Lily who was looking somewhat.

"Huh? I thought you said you'd make breakfast for me, Liz."

"Well, I underestimated Tibaut's appetite."

As Elizabeth wasn't completely heartless, she soon made something for Lily and the pair of her and Tibaut went outside to get some training in. Elizabeth quickly went into the forest to find anything she recognised as edible to feed to Tibaut.

Tibaut looked at his body before the training started.

("It's weird, I ate so much yet I still look like I came out of a gulag.")

His once tight shirt and pants combo he had gotten from Elizabeth, were now quite roomy.

----------------------------------------

It was a dark room and two people were playing poker. They both wore all black and had no qualms with their choice of clothing due to how cold the time had been. Their table was lit only by a single candle.

A door opened and brought with it moonlight. There was a singular figure standing there. He had a charred cape and wore all black.

One of the men quickly bailed from the table.

"Wow, you sure took your sweet time coming back huh?"

The other got up to stop him.

"Oi, you haven't played your cards yet."

The first man ignored him and the other sighed and went to sit back down.

"I had to make sure I wasn't followed or they noticed my presence. Hopefully, you all did your jobs and followed the ones that came back." The man in black responded.

"That's where everyone else is. I'm surprised you knew where the group watching that noble would head down to. It seems they stopped their interactions with other bases a bit too late."