My Scumbag System Chapter 669: Stress Cooking at an Olympic Level

The kitchen smelled like heaven had decided to open a restaurant.

My mother had outdone herself. The table practically groaned under the weight of food. Tonkatsu, golden and crispy. Rice so perfectly steamed it could make a grown man weep. Miso soup with tofu cubes floating like little clouds. A mountain of gyoza that would require several trips to demolish. Side dishes I couldn’t even name but knew would be incredible.

Stress baking, she’d called it.

This was stress cooking at an Olympic level.

"Sit," she commanded, pointing at my usual chair. "Eat. Talk can wait until you have something in your stomach."

Natalia collapsed into the seat beside me with all the grace of a marionette with cut strings. The dark circles under her eyes had deepened during the drive. Her purple hair had escaped its ponytail in several places. She looked like she’d been through a war.

Which, in a sense, she had.

Forty-seven hours of waiting for her boyfriend to emerge from cosmic surgery would do that to a person.

"You should sleep," I said.

"Food first. Your mother’s cooking is the only thing keeping me vertical right now."

"That’s the spirit." My mother set a plate in front of Natalia piled high enough to feed three people. "You need calories after what you’ve been through."

"What I’ve been through? Satori was the one in the integration chamber."

"You were the one who stayed awake for two days worrying about him. That burns calories too."

I couldn’t argue with that logic.

The front door opened and Luka’s booming voice filled the house.

"Something smells amazing! Kimiko, did you cook for an army again?"

"Our son came home," my mother called back. "That warrants a celebration."

Luka appeared in the kitchen doorway. His massive frame nearly filled the entire opening. The B-Rank Hunter who could stop a charging monster with nothing but his body and sheer stubbornness looked at me with something that might have been moisture in his eyes.

"Satori."

"Hey, Pops."

He crossed the kitchen in three strides and pulled me into a hug that definitely cracked something in my spine. The man didn’t know his own strength. Or he did and just didn’t care.

"We were worried," he said into my shoulder. "Your mother tried to hide it but she wasn’t sleeping. Kept baking at three in the morning."

"I can see that."

"Welcome home, son."

Son.

The word hit different now.

Knowing what I knew about my origins. About the entity that had designed my existence before I was even conceived. About the consciousness transfer that had made me who I was.

But Luka didn’t know any of that.

To him, I was just his stepson. The kid he’d chosen to love despite not sharing a single drop of blood.

That choice meant something.

Luka released me and took his usual seat at the head of the table. His eyes swept across the feast my mother had prepared with obvious appreciation.

"This looks incredible, Kimiko."

"It’s nothing special."

"Woman, you’ve made enough food to feed my entire guild. That’s special."

My mother smiled and took her own seat. The four of us sat around the table like a normal family about to have a normal dinner.

Nothing about this situation was normal.

But normal was overrated anyway.

We ate in companionable silence for the first few minutes. The food was as incredible as it looked. The tonkatsu practically melted on my tongue. The rice was the perfect texture. The gyoza had that ideal crispy bottom that made each bite satisfying.

My mother watched me eat with barely concealed relief.

"So," Luka said eventually, breaking the silence. "Want to tell us what you’ve been up to? Kimiko mentioned something about training but was light on details."

I exchanged a glance with my mother.

She gave me a small nod.

Right.

Luka didn’t know everything. Didn’t know about the entity or the Prometheus Protocol or my father’s experiments. My mother had kept that information between us.

But he deserved something.

"I was working on my Aspect," I said carefully. "Trying to push past some limitations."

"And?"

"It worked. Mostly."

"Mostly?"

"The process was more intense than I expected. Natalia stayed with me through the worst of it."

Luka looked at Natalia with newfound respect.

"That’s loyalty."

"That’s love," Natalia corrected, her voice slightly slurred with exhaustion. "There’s a difference."

"Fair enough."

The conversation drifted to safer topics after that. Luka talked about his guild’s latest Gate clear. My mother mentioned a new recipe she wanted to try. Natalia’s responses grew increasingly monosyllabic as her energy reserves depleted.

By the time we finished eating, she was barely keeping her eyes open.

"Bed," I said, pulling her chair back. "Now."

"I can walk."

"I know you can. I’m offering to carry you anyway."

"That’s embarrassingly romantic."

"I’m an embarrassingly romantic person."

"You’re really not."

"I’m trying new things."

I scooped her up before she could protest further. She weighed nothing in my arms. Whether that was because she’d lost weight during the past two days or because the integration had enhanced my strength remained unclear.

Probably both.

"I’ll be right back," I told my mother as I carried Natalia toward the stairs.

"Take your time. Luka and I need to talk anyway."

That sounded ominous.

But I had more immediate concerns.

Natalia’s room hadn’t changed since I’d last seen it. Same purple bedding. Same neatly organized desk. Same collection of books she pretended she didn’t read. The space smelled like her shampoo and the faint ozone scent that accompanied her telekinetic abilities.

I set her down on the bed as gently as I could manage.

"Stay," she mumbled, grabbing my wrist.

"I need to talk to my mom."

"Five minutes."

"Natalia."

"Five minutes." Her grip tightened. "I spent forty-seven hours terrified you were going to die or come back as something I didn’t recognize. Give me five minutes of knowing you’re still you."

I couldn’t argue with that.

I kicked off my shoes and lay down beside her. The bed was too small for two people but we made it work. Her body pressed against mine with familiar warmth. Her breathing started to even out almost immediately.

"Satori?"

"Yeah?"

"What was it like? The integration?"

I considered the question.

"Imagine standing in a library that goes on forever. Every book contains knowledge that would break your mind if you tried to read it. And something old is watching you, deciding whether you’re worth keeping."

"That sounds terrifying."

"It was. But I had something to hold onto."

"What?"

"You. My mom. The girls. Everyone who chose to stand with me despite knowing what I am."

Her hand found mine in the darkness.

"We didn’t choose despite anything. We chose because of who you are."

"A manipulative bastard with a god complex?"

"Among other things."

I laughed quietly.

"Go to sleep, Natalia."

"Five more minutes."

She was unconscious in thirty seconds.