Chapter 100 – The Night of the Full Cauldron.

The sound that woke Diana in her room at The Smoking Boar Tavern was neither the usual shouting of livestock traders nor the clanking ironwork of heavy wagons.

It was music.

The deep blare of ox-horn trumpets and the rhythmic rattle of beast-hide drums drifted up from the main thoroughfare, accompanied by raspy voices singing folk melodies Diana had never heard before in her life.

Diana sat up on the straw mat, running a hand over her face. The right side of her chest barely ached anymore, though her muscles still craved rest after the exhausting hunt of the day before.

She stood up, walked over to the wooden window, and pushed open the shutters.

The view of Iron Cauldron City was entirely transformed.

The industrial cauldrons that typically burned coal for smelting were extinguished. In their stead, hundreds of yellow and red paper lanterns hung suspended from ropes strung between granite rooftops. Long tables of rustic wood had been set up along the entire main avenue, draped in unbleached linen and laden with massive platters of roast meat, pumpkin pies, and flagons of dark beer.

At the east gate, the bounty board was covered by a painted wooden sign: Closed for the Day of the Full Cauldron.

Diana blinked her dark eyes, watching the festive bustling down below.

She had never bothered memorizing Hell's religious calendar, let alone each Circle's regional holidays. The only things that mattered in her routine were the flow of coins and dungeon levels.

But here in the Circle of Gluttony, the Day of the Full Cauldron was the most sacred celebration of the year: twenty-four hours in which all military activity, tax collection, and hunting were suspended so the entire populace could dedicate itself solely to cooking, eating, and drinking in public squares.

No guard would patrol. No tracker would work that day.

***

Diana donned her long black leather coat, pulled her hood over her obsidian horns, and descended the inn's stairs.

The outpost's streets were teeming with people.

Whole families of four-armed ogres shared cauldrons of steaming stew with lesser demons and caravan merchants. Children darted between wooden benches clutching spun-sugar treats, while Level 50 veterans clinked clay mugs in the air, laughing at old jokes and singing around fires of scented timber.

Diana walked slowly along the edge of the street, hands resting in her jacket pockets.

She stopped before a street stall where an elderly gray-skinned woman was roasting fire roots glazed in infernal cane molasses over a stone griddle.

“A root skewer and a mug of hot apple cider,” Diana ordered, taking fifty bronze coins from her pocket.

The woman handed over the clay plate with the caramelized root and the steaming mug with a wide, toothless grin: “Happy Full Cauldron, traveler! May your plate never lack for fat!”

Diana took the food, offered thanks with a brief nod, and walked over to a low stone wall beside an inactive fountain, away from the main clamor of the square.

The balance in the faction vault held steady at 369 Silver Coins (36.9 Gold Coins), with nine loose silver coins in her pocket.

***

Diana sat on the wall's cool stone and took a bite of the caramelized root.

The taste was sweet, warm, and tender. The cider slid down her throat, warming her chest with a gentle aroma of cinnamon and apple.

The food was excellent.

Yet as she chewed slowly, watching the crowd laugh and toast around the long banquet tables, a strange, heavy weight began to settle in the pit of Diana's stomach.

It was an uncomfortable quiet.

On Earth, Diana had spent seventeen years marking holidays alone in her drab room, eating cold box meals while her parents worked overtime shifts. Back then, solitude was a natural state, a numbed armor she had grown accustomed to since childhood. She hadn't missed anyone because she had never had anyone by her side.

But now... things were different.

Diana had spent the past two months living inside a loud, vibrant house.

She had grown used to waking up to the sound of Kael doing push-ups in the courtyard and grumbling about the shield's weight. She had grown used to Aurelia-Elysia's lively kitchen chatter about tea recipes, Seraphina's studious quiet as she paged through grimoires in the sitting room, and the steady warmth of Rhea resting beside her, purring with silver ears tucked against her shoulder.

Sitting there on a stone wall in the middle of a festival where everyone had someone to toast with made the absence of her squad weigh heavy like lead.

Diana caught herself glancing toward the street corner, instinctively scanning for the gleam of a night-blue coat or the flutter of silver wolf ears darting through the crowd.

There was no one.

There was only the shimmer of paper lanterns flickering across grease puddles on the packed-dirt ground.

***

—Strange, isn't it?

The System's voice echoed in Diana's mind.

This time, the interface didn't flash with flashy black-gold lettering. Its presence drifted gently, like a quiet whisper in the depths of her thoughts.

—You spent seventeen years telling yourself you didn't need anyone to be strong, Diana. But it's hard going back to eating alone once you've had a table full of people back home.

Diana looked down at the mug of cider cradled between her leather gloves.

She didn't curse at the System. She didn't snap back with mathematical arguments of profit margins or military efficiency.

“Having a coordinated team makes routines more efficient,” Diana replied quietly in thought, taking another sip of hot cider. “That is all it is.”

—If you say so... the System answered in a gentle, almost knowing tone. But you know Rhea and the others are holding that Bastion together in the Second Circle waiting for you.

Diana slipped her left hand into her jacket's inner pocket, touching the smooth, cool surface of the Silver Lotus Mirror Cassian had given her.

She felt the steady hum of her 183 Intelligence points and the stability of her 390 hit points, now fully restored from the fractures.

She was alone on this holiday in the Third Circle.

But that solitude was temporary.

Diana finished eating the fire root, drained the rest of the apple cider, and stood up from the stone wall.

Tomorrow the city's cauldrons would fire up with coal once more. The gates to the rifts would reopen, and Boran would be waiting for her by the east gate at five in the morning.

She would hunt. She would level up step by step until hitting Level 50, and once the border gate opened, she would march straight back to claim every single member of her faction.

Diana adjusted her hood over her obsidian horns and walked with steady strides back toward the inn, while the songs and laughter of the Night of the Full Cauldron continued rising into the reddish sky of Hell.