116 Preparing Hotpot

Back at the base, everyone was energetically cooking up dinner. Having Yukio constantly invoking his power allowed everyone to stay in top shape despite the long, persistent hours of fighting. Their bodies felt full of energy, though their mental strength still required recovery on its own.

Ace bit his lip as he asked, "Why hasn't master returned yet?" He stared off into the distance like a worried mistress.

Little White also looked off into the distance with a semi-aggrieved vibe, he had been abandoned and left to fight with everyone else instead of going to fight with his Mama. Why did his sister (Xiao Ai) get to go but not him? Mama was biased!

Rose also looked towards the door very frequently, clearly waiting for Aida to return. Her phase continued to remain completely impassive and indifferent.

Yukio also followed suit and looked off into the distance as well, but his thoughts were completely different than the others. He was silently wishing that his big sis would return soon so he could have a plant and get started eating! He had absolute faith in his big sis' abilities, she would never be defeated.

Light responded evenly, "She'll return when she wants to. She knows how to take care of herself." Among everyone, he was the only one who could feel a semi-tangible connection with Aida and could therefore read her general condition.

Today, they decided to stop by a house in the residential area instead of staying in the RV. The goal was both to stock up on food and to cook a huge meal in celebration of Yukio's recovery. Everyone pitched in on the cooking. Light and Yukio directed each of them to do different cooking tasks. They were preparing to eat hotpot tonight so there was a lot of meal preparation involved. Hotpot was the perfect meal to have in cold winters.

Ace was in charge of fixing the electrical wiring in the house to make the stove, sink and rice cooker functional again. He became the designated electrician. Lucifer and Little White were in charge of chopping the ingredients. Lucifer treated this activity as another training and controlled a few knives simultaneously to chop the frozen meat into the thinnest slices possible. Rose was in charge of preserving all the different meats that were still edible so they could be eaten later on the road.

On the side, Yukio and Rin were in charge of acquiring all the necessary vegetables and preparing the sauces and marination for the meat. Vegetables were hard to find in this climate, so they were going from backyard to backyard in hopes to find some edible plants. Yukio's wood element would help him sense which were edible and which weren't. They also raided various fridges, freezers and cabinets to find the right ingredients and spices. The items were getting progressively more challenging to acquire since the Variants in the city were beginning their raid of the houses as well to acquire enough supplies for their respective bases.

Finally, Light focused on preparing the soup base, carefully refining the recipe. He luxuriously made three different soup bases: spicy miso, pork and fish. After setting them up, he started cleaning up the tables and chairs so they could sit in a dust free environment. The house hadn't been occupied for almost 2 months and had accumulated quite a bit of dust.

Everyone was happily chatting and cooking. Ace even put on some top 40 hits for them to listen to and sing to while working. Everyone was shocked by Ace's tone deaf voice as he sang along to the songs and the twins even fell onto the ground laughing. It was a very normal scene that seemed extremely out of place in an apocalypse.

***

In a different part of the city, Aida was aggressively fighting two level 2 Reapers at once. She intended for this to be the last fight before she went back to regroup. Light had informed her over the radio that they had prepared a big feast for dinner and, as a certified foodie, she was eager to get back.

The two Reapers before her were an interesting pairing -- a baby and an old grandpa. The two seemed to have worked out a symbiotic relationship. The baby had a sonic attack that rang at a frequency that humans couldn't hear, but could severely damage a person's ear drums. The old grandpa had some precognition ability.

Aida was having a difficult time fighting them because the old grandpa was able to predict her every move and then directed the baby to send waves in that direction. This meant that sneak attacks didn't work on this pair either. She had to fight them face on.

The challenge is that she had to completely block off her hearing in order to get near them, which was quite the inconvenience. Since the old grandpa could see a few minutes into the future, she had to plan her steps further in advance and trap them so they wouldn't be able to escape.

Aida left Xiao Ai at a nearby building to spectate and prevent her from getting injured.

Aida had collected many metal shards along the way and decided to use them now. She circled around the Reapers while dropping the various metal shards to create an encirclement. Because the shards were dropped on the ground near them but not at them, the grandpa Reaper wasn't able to predict what it was going to be used for. In that sense, Aida was fortunate that the pairing were Reapers instead of Variants. If the pair were Variants, they would immediately be able to comprehend the dangers of being encircled like this. Having surrounded the Reapers with the shards, she jumped into the little battle ring she made for herself.

Earlier on, one of the bigger annoyances she faced when attacking this pair was that the Reapers could summon Enrageds to interrupt the fight and escape afterwards. Now that she had created a ring, no one outside would be able to interrupt their fight and the two inside could not escape easily without getting injured.

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