Chapter 147 – Sugar and Silence.

Diana woke before everyone else that morning.

The manor was steeped in that heavy early morning quiet, with Kael snoring in the ground-floor bedroom and the distant sound of water trickling through the kitchen pipes. 

Diana slipped out of bed without making a sound. She did not put on her heavy combat coat, leaving the Dragon Chestplate resting on the room's iron stand. She wore only comfortable black cotton trousers, a loose linen blouse, and a civilian overcoat of gray wool with an open collar that didn't brush against her obsidian horns.

The Crown of Arcane Sovereignty remained on her brow, its purple diamond glowing with a calm, subdued pulse.

She walked downstairs barefoot, pulled on her soft leather boots at the threshold of the back door, and slipped out through the courtyard's side gate without telling anyone.

She was not heading to the hunting rifts. She was not going to the guild bank to check interest rates, she had no meetings scheduled with merchants, and she had no interest in debating dungeon routes.

For the first time in over two months in Hell, Diana simply wanted to walk without a military objective to accomplish.

***

The coppery sun was just beginning to brighten the valley when Diana reached the northwest sector of the city: The Sugar Cauldron Lane.

The Third Circle was not known solely for fatty meats and heavy stews. As the domain of Gluttony, the outpost's confectionery trade operated on a colossal scale that no other city in Hell could replicate.

The air along that lane smelled of melted butter, sugar cane bubbling in copper vats, roasted hazelnuts, and freshly ground dark cocoa.

Diana strolled along the red-brick sidewalks with her hands in her overcoat pockets.

On Earth, sweets had been a rare luxury in her childhood. With her parents' wages always stretched thin to cover rent and electric bills for their drab apartment, Diana rarely ate chocolate. Whenever she bought a pack of sandwich cookies after school, it was by saving her lunch change for two whole weeks.

She stopped before the wooden display window of a bakery named The Honey Pot.

Inside, a four-armed, reddish-skinned woman was pulling batches of round pies from a stone oven, drizzling the puff pastry with warm caramel syrup and chopped walnuts.

Diana pushed open the wooden door and stepped inside.

The brass bell chimed with a clear ring.

“Good morning, horned young lady,” the woman greeted in a warm, raspy voice, wiping her hands on a linen apron. “We have fresh walnut pies with warm fire-caramel and sweet rolls filled with mountain sheep cream.”

Diana looked at the counter.

“I'll take a walnut caramel pie and a mug of hot chocolate with cinnamon essence,” Diana ordered, pulling fifty bronze coins from her pocket.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

[BAKERY EXPENSES]

- Walnut Pie and Hot Chocolate: -50 Bronze.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Diana took the clay plate with the steaming pie and the thick mug, walking out to a round iron table set on the bakery's walkway beneath the shade of a yellow canvas awning.

***

Diana sat on the iron chair and broke off a piece of pie with the edge of her fork.

The crust was flaky, yielding with ease, and the walnut and fire-caramel filling released a sweet steam fragrant with burnt sugar and sweet spices.

She lifted the piece to her mouth and chewed slowly.

The flavor was rich, buttery and dense, with a gentle touch of mana heat that traveled down her throat, warming her chest without scalding.

Diana took a sip of the hot chocolate from the mug. The texture was velvety, thick, with a bittersweet edge of pure cocoa that balanced the rich caramel of the pie.

The Commander leaned back against the iron chair, exhaling softly through her lips, letting her dark eyes wander across the quiet street.

There were no battle cries. There were no monsters lunging with razor claws.

There was only the rhythmic thud of bakers unloading flour sacks, the aroma of syrup bubbling in copper kettles, and the warmth of the mug cradled between her black gloves.

She touched the tip of her obsidian nail to her lip to wipe away a bead of dark caramel, tasting the sweetness on the tip of her tongue.

—Look at you...

The System's voice echoed in her mind in a gentle tone of black gold, free of its usual heavy mockery.

—The Commander of Greed eating caramel pie at a sidewalk table like an ordinary eighteen-year-old girl. It does you good to clear your head once in a while, Diana.

Diana took another sip of the hot chocolate, answering mentally in a calm tone:

“I have over fifty gold coins stored in my vault, System. I can sit in this chair and eat pie for as long as I want.”

—You certainly can. You paid for every single bite of this rest with your own blood in those rifts.

Diana remained seated there for nearly a full hour, finishing the pie at a leisurely pace, watching the copper sunlight climb the red-brick walls along the lane.

The feeling in her chest was one of pure peace, the kind that required no stat audits to make sense.

***

Before leaving, Diana stood up and stepped back into the four-armed baker's shop.

She looked over the pastry racks and pointed toward the trays:

“I would like a large wooden box with a ribbon. Pack four honey breads filled with sweet cream, two wild berry tarts, six sweet corn rolls, and a portion of those chopped walnut candies.”

The baker boxed everything into a pine box lined with waxed paper and tied it up with a red fabric ribbon.

Diana took one silver coin and fifty bronze from her pocket and set it on the counter.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

[HOUSEHOLD PASTRY ORDER EXPENSES]

- Noble Assorted Pastry Box: -1 Silver Coin and 50 Bronze Coins (150 Bronze).

[NEW NET WORTH IN VAULT: 523 SILVER COINS (52,300 Bronze / EXACTLY 52.3 PURE GOLD COINS!)]

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Five hundred and twenty-three silver coins safely stored in the faction vault. More than Fifty-Two pure Gold Coins.

Diana tucked the pastry box under her right arm and began the walk back to the Lower Cauldrons Estate.

The morning breeze blew cool against the skirts of her gray overcoat.

Pushing open the manor's double iron gates, Diana saw Kael and Mai sitting on the back porch locked in an arm-wrestling match across the wooden bench, while Aurelia and Seraphina cheered them on with tea mugs in hand, and Rhea watched from the steps with her ears perked.

The moment the aroma of caramel and honey bread wafted from the wooden box across the courtyard gravel, the arm-wrestling contest halted instantly.

Rhea turned her head with amber eyes gleaming, Mai let go of Kael's arm to sniff the air, and Kael broke into an ear-to-ear grin.

Diana walked up to the porch, set the pastry box onto the coffee table with a crisp wooden clatter, and looked at the six members of her faction with a small, sharp, satisfied smile:

“Real breakfast has arrived. Grab some plates.”