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**
The busy morning flew by. Kiana and Jiuxiao patched up the large hole in the wooden house with wooden boards. Looking at the old-fashioned wall clock, it was nearly noon.
"Is it just the two of us for lunch?"
"Yeah, that stinky old dad has been gone for days now. I've been eating alone lately."
Kiana's eyes dimmed a little. Originally, Siegfried had acknowledged her and passed down the Kaslana combat techniques and family ideals. But not long ago, Kiana woke up and found that Siegfried was gone. At first, she thought he was playing a prank.
She waited all day and night, but he never came back. She had gone a whole day without eating. Without him, she didn't know how to cook. So she went to bed with an empty stomach, hoping he'd be back when she woke up.
In her dreams, she saw Siegfried, but he had lost his left arm. He held the great sword, *Judgement of Shamash*, high in his right hand, flames roaring from its hilt—this was its zero-output setting: *Heavenfire Unsheathed*.
And its target... was her.
"Dad, no!"
Kiana woke up with a start, one of her icy blue pupils flickering gold for a moment before turning back.
She hugged her knees in the corner of the bed, silent. The night was quiet, save for the occasional grumble from her stomach.
The next day, she kept searching for Siegfried in and around the house, but found nothing. Well, not nothing—she encountered two Assault-Class Honkai Beasts. Pulling out her dual pistols, she fought them off.
She used up most of her energy but finally took them down. Looking at the beasts' corpses, she thought, *If stinky old dad were here, he could've wiped them out with a single swing.*
Dragging the beasts home, she figured this would be food for the next few days. Her dad had roasted one of them with Heavenfire before—tasteless and tough, but food was food.
A few days later, after scouring the nearby forest and finding no sign of Siegfried, Kiana decided to follow the road until she found him.
After packing her things—her backpack bigger than she was—she took one last look at her room, locked the door, and set off.
And then... she found Jiuxiao, unconscious from the cold. Which brings us to now.
After a moment of thought, Jiuxiao asked curiously:
"So... are you good at cooking?"
Kiana shook her head, then pointed to her big backpack. "Nope. I've just been eating raw Honkai Beasts these past few days."
"You're telling me that stuff's *edible*?! Honkai really *can* do everything, huh!"
Jiuxiao was stunned. According to what the Stigmata had told him before, Honkai Beasts and Deadwalkers were like wild mobs in the Honkai world. And with a name like 'Deadwalker,' well... not exactly gourmet material. Honkai Beasts probably weren't much better.
Kiana gave Jiuxiao a suspicious look and started circling around him, finally hitting him with a soul-piercing question:
"Why *can't* Honkai Beasts be eaten?"
"Huh?!"
"Huh?!"
"What are you 'huh'-ing about?"
"I dunno. You 'huh'-ed, so I 'huh'-ed too."
Jiuxiao rolled his eyes and walked into the kitchen, determined to make a proper meal.
"No rice? No flour? No veggies?! Not even a stove?! What the heck do you even eat here?!" Jiuxiao stormed into the kitchen, only to find the fridge empty, the cupboards barren, and not even a trace of a stove.
"Stove? What's that?"
Kiana tilted her head. The word seemed unfamiliar. But the moment she asked, Jiuxiao went dead silent.
"It's where you burn stuff, duh. How else do you cook anything without a stove?"
"Uh... Dad used to just toss stuff on Heavenfire and it'd be done in a bit. I've never seen a stove before, honestly."
She hung her head, poking her fingers together shyly. Then something occurred to her, and she perked up.
"Oh! What about that big fireplace outside? Dad and I used to roast stuff there all the time."
"In any rational world, a wooden cabin having a massive, working fireplace is already kinda wild... but I saw it—it's covered in dust. Haven't used it in ages, huh?"
"Dad used to just stab Heavenfire in and the fire would start. Now that he's gone, I don't know how to light it anymore!"
"Let me guess—you don't even have a firestarter. I don't know how to make a fire from scratch either. Looks like we're back to raw Honkai Beast, huh? Can't believe the savior of the world is gonna starve to death in the frozen tundra."
"Well, at least we *have* something to eat. If you want something better, go forage later. Dad always came back with tons of ingredients. Though, anything he cooked on Heavenfire always ended up tasting like charcoal."
As she spoke, Kiana unzipped her backpack and pulled out a giant lump of pink meat, about the size of her own head. It was uneven and full of teeth marks.
"How much do you want?"
"I guess... however much I can eat? This is my first time eating this stuff too." Jiuxiao and Kiana exchanged a glance, then both looked at Jiuxiao's stomach. Kiana scratched her head, raised her hand, and began knocking on the lump of meat.
After a while of failed knocking, Kiana tilted her head—the ahoge on her head wiggling with the motion—and to Jiuxiao's shock, she just bit straight into it. The Honkai meat, which couldn't be broken with fists, was getting chomped down by Kiana like it was nothing.
A moment later, Kiana puffed up her cheeks and looked at Jiuxiao. When he didn't react, she grabbed his hands, opened her mouth, and *spat* the chewed-up piece into his palms.
Then she sat back on the couch, chomping happily on the rest.
Jiuxiao stood frozen.
In his mind, two voices fought.
A tiny black-winged Jiuxiao whispered seductively:
"Eat it, eat it. It's got Kiana's spit—indirect kiss, hello?"
A white-winged Jiuxiao pushed the other aside and declared righteously:
"At least rinse it off before eating! We're the saviors of the world, have *some* dignity!"
While he stood caught in this mental storm, Kiana waved her hand in front of his face. When he still didn't respond, she raised her hand to pat his cheek—only to suddenly recall something, and instead smacked him straight across the face.
"You perv! What were you thinking about?! Hurry up and go wash it! Don't tell me you were *actually* considering eating my spit?! Pervert!"
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