Chapter 88: Meal, Ready-to-Eat

Noah made his way to the table, stepping around Saint who continued to eat, unbothered by the new arrival. Elizabeth had finished setting the table and found her own seat in the meanwhile, with three heaping servings of pasta, canned orange juice and cutlery on the side; a perfect recipe for the most awkward dinner Emma could remember. Family meals had never been lively with Felix absent, but the atmosphere today was particularly grim; the easy camaraderie of everyday life having died in the apocalypse.

Nobody spoke at first, nor did anyone touch their food, each waiting for an unspoken signal that eluded them as the silence lengthened. Despite her many questions, Emma was no exception as she struggled to put her thoughts into words. After all, how does one go about asking how long her Mother had hidden an entire magical society from the family? There was no polite way to put it, while small talk also seemed woefully inadequate given the circumstances. Eventually, Saint was the one to finally break the stalemate; climbing onto the table after emptying her own dish, and helping herself to Emma's portion as well.

"Stop that!" Emma complained, reflexively waving Efishency at the feline to scare her off.

Saint instead leapt up and seized the rubber fish in her jaw, running off with it to the adjoining living room. As Emma watched, gobsmacked, Saint settled down to sleep in an oversized cat bed on the floor, curled up around Efishency like a stuffed toy and purring her heart out. Undoubtedly, that had been the outcome she'd sought all along.

"There's something weird about that cat," Noah muttered, shaking his head at Saint's antics. "Far too smart for an animal, even one that's gaining levels. A few of the oxen in the fields have levels too, and none of them can plan worth a damn."

Emma was tempted to use Oversoul to retrieve her hard-won prize, but ultimately relented in favour of attempting to eat. Following her earlier train of thought, she stuck a finger into the pasta, willing herself to see it as an enemy that had been impaled and seeking out the meagre reserves of anima within. Surprisingly, this worked, as the four-fifths of her portion that survived Saint's attention began to dry; ageing visibly by the second until the pasta collapsed into an off-white pile of dust. The anima gain was negligible, a few points worth at most if she wasn't already at full health from healing over time, but it worked, albeit without providing any sense of taste to go with the anima. Shrugging, Emma helped herself to the orange juice; that, at least, she was still able to consume the proper way.

"Does the helmet not come off?" Elizabeth asked between mouthfuls; finally starting to partake herself, now that Saint had thoroughly broken the ice with her antics.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"Not the normal way," Emma shrugged, not exactly bothered in this case, as she'd never been much of a vegetarian even before her newfound thirst for anima. "Any chance I can buy a body that looks like my own, preferably Level 1 and without a mind of its own?"

"Oh, a homunculus?" Elizabeth paused to consider the question. "Some of the alchemists sell standard models, though you'll need to put up a commission for a custom job. It won't be cheap either, since it takes a proper alchemist to make anything more than a basic, doll-shaped automaton."

"That sounds incredibly creepy," Noah added his two cents. "It reminds me of the time I had to translate a bunch of documents smuggled to England hidden in a shipment of mannequins. Wax and plastic should not look so lifelike."

"I don't need it to model clothes for me," Emma rebutted, deeply unimpressed. "I can possess a living body and take it over; having a clone ready on demand wouldn't be much use for combat, but being able to eat would be nice."

"I know a shop that can put the order in," Elizabeth added. "It won't be fast, but it shouldn't take more than a few weeks to prepare."

"On that note, what's the situation with the Empire as a whole?" Emma asked, starting to ask the important questions as she got more comfortable. "There's not much left of the towns and cities I've seen, not with technology dying left and right, but a magical society should hopefully have done better."

"A majority of residents survived," Elizabeth acknowledged. "Though ours has never been a big population; a few thousand at most, scattered across England and only meeting infrequently. There's a node in town, linked to the network we use for fast travel; the main hub for commerce is hidden within Sherwood Forest, which is where our alchemist can be found."

"Robin Hood, protector of merchants?" Noah raised an eyebrow. "Not quite the story I remember reading."

"Magical history differs significantly from the mundane," Elizabeth acknowledged, looking contrite. "I apologise, but I couldn't have told you any of this before, given the rules..."

[Liar.]

Emma tapped her finger on the table, driving an inch-deep furrow into aged wood.

"I didn't want to tell you," Elizabeth amended swiftly, wincing as her eyes narrowed, focusing on something only she could see. "The Empire was at peace, and magic was in a state of continual decline. All the models suggested that would continue into perpetuity; leaving little point in sharing with you this world, when without magic you'd never be able to properly interact with it."

[Truth. Curious.]

"What do you mean, continual decline?" Emma frowned. "I thought mana cycled between flood and drought, a thousand years or so each cycle?"

"Eleven hundred years each," Elizabeth corrected absently. "That's how it's supposed to be, yes, but somehow that didn't happen last time round. After peaking in the ninth century, mana levels began to decline, reaching a nadir in the late fourteenth century. But it never picked up again, never built back towards a peak as in previous cycles. Indeed, though the decline curve flattened in the latter half of the millennium, absolute levels were still slowly dropping year on year. There were no indications at all of a rebound, until all the mana returned in an instant."

[Truth. Someone's playing games here, and for once it's not me. Ask her about the Princess.]