The Meal

Shawn wondered how the sleep even came upon him. He wasn't used to doing it at home or anywhere else when it was daytime.

"Since this is the situation I'm already in, might as well get back to completing one of those quests," He thought right before a tab appeared in his front, letting him look at the quests available.

*Requirements for Upgrading - Complete Six or all of these quests.

1. Earn at least 22,000 CP - 12,900/22,000

2. Have at least eight races in your world - Currently 7/8

3. Complete at least ten quests - 6/10

4. Have two overseers from a race, your world, or a realm -

5. Have an evolved race -

6 Perform a specific action on your world -

7 Have one or more higher beings in your world - C *

“I think that I'll go with the one which requires me to deal with specific action.”

He looked at the map and located the western continent, which was already small. The World was already at Rank 2 so the surrounding borders were increased for him to add more landmasses if he wanted.

He decided to go on with some modifications and a new introduction but before he knew it a loud ringing noise invaded his ears. *Ding! Logging Creator out of the world*

"What the...I just go here?!" He roared, squinting his face with anger.

*Apologies, some matters require your urgent attention.*

"Sheesh. I decided to take a nap, so I didn't expect my time here to be long, but I didn't expect it to be this short either," He grumbled, then waited for the system to log him out.

Upon waking up and being returned to his room, his eyes opened slowly, and he was met with a creeping Lucas, tiptoeing into his room. His face widened into a creepy grin, and he remained motionless, pretending to sleep while his brother wandered around searching for his phone, unaware of the predator who was watching.

“Where did he put it?” Lucas growled and squeezed his fists out of frustration after not searching for a relatively long period.

“There can only be one place that I haven't checked,” He thought, turning towards the direction of Shawn's bed; his chest rose rapidly before falling as he exhaled slowly.

Then he inched closer to his brother's body and stretched out a hand before touching the pillow that Shawn slept on. His hand reached carefully under and smooth like a snake when it slithered.

He was so preoccupied with searching for it that he didn't notice when Shawn suddenly opened his eyes and dashed towards Lucas' hand, revealing his teeth as he bit it gently.

"Yahooww!" Lucas screamed and goosebumps began to rise. Shawn, after giving a small bite to the hand, finally released it.

"You bit me!" Lucas roared, shooting a glare at him.

"Sneaking into my room to take back your phone, didn't you expect that I would catch you red-handed?” Shawn answered with the same smug look he had earlier, angering his brother even more.

"You were asleep so how was I supposed to know?"

"Of course, when was the last time I slept in the day?" Shawn replied with a matter-of-fact tone.

"Can I have my phone now that I've been caught?" Lucas pleaded, losing his cool on arguing any further.

"Hmmm, let me think about it." His brother placed a hand on his chin, feigning contemplation, "Stay outside first."

"I came for my phone. You can't just send me out, especially after biting me. You vampire!" He flared.

"Don't forget that this is my room." Shawn reminded, raising one eyebrow to taunt him.

"I want my phone now!" Lucas demanded.

"Wait outside, or you'll be the one waiting for it, as I'll be sitting down here for as long as you are still in my domain."

"Then I'll just keep searching," Lucas said, getting up from the floor as he began rummaging.

"Go ahead," Shawn smiled then watched.

After searching for almost 10 minutes but to no avail.

"Ughhhh. Fine," Lucas grumbled before walking outside, and Shawn watched as his brother left before standing from the bed and walking to the door before locking it.

After all, no one wants someone so noisy and nosey to find a secret location. Once Lucas left with a hard smash of the door, he locked it, went to his wardrobe, and took the phone out from the cloth that he had kept it in for more than an hour

He brought it out and unlocked the door, exposing Lucas, who nearly fell face flat to the floor. "So can I have it now?" Lucas asked, smiling sheepishly.

"Yes,'' Shawn responded before handing him back his phone. Lucas took it with both hands, proceeded to do a head up high thank you, and left like a nobleman with his chin and posture upright as well as a funny aura.

Seeing this, his older brother resisted the urge to laugh at the younger brother's antics. He then closed the door to the room. Lucas had been peeping, but unfortunately, his brother knew how sneaky siblings were and covered the peep sites with cloths, foam, and paper.

Upon ending the whole drama, he opened his laptop, which he placed on a desk, and removed the school notes from his bag. Seeing the available apps that were in a folder tagged ‘School work' and “Might as well get to work" were the first words that left his mouth.

Then, he started to open various apps, which included coding, graphics, and website designing. He got to work to finish the assignments given and to do a bit of revision along with some other work and test runs.

Suddenly, the unique door noise from downstairs interrupted his focus, and he ran downstairs to see who it was. Upon reaching there, he was met with the view of his mum, dressed in a black suit, wearing a black skirt while holding a silver-colored designer's bag.

Shawn, by manners and respect, went to help her out with the bag she carried, and Stacy, who was watching TV, had finally arrived, "Welcome Mummy," She said. "How was work?" She added while running to hug her mum.

"Ohh, it was fine," Emily replied before carrying her daughter while Shawn took her bag from her. Emily walked into the sitting room and sat on the couch. "Shawn it's your turn to cook today."

"Oh, Oh," Shawn said in his head, "Today is Wednesday. How could I have forgotten that?"

"Mum can we...." He paused before he was given a direct reply by his mom "No! Not today, I'm tired."

Stacy seemed to have noticed her brother’s intention, "Elder brother, mummy is tired, better go and cook or else you'll be left to go to bed on an empty stomach"

“Not nice to say to your big brother,” Emily immediately reprimanded her.

Shawn was not prepared for this mentally. He had just woken up and he was logged out of doing his work in Ornio. Surely, he was going to be unwilling, but his sister was right: Mom was tired, so he better just do it; it's only once a week, after all.

A random thought popped into his head and he smiled realizing something, "Of course, I have a younger one,"

"Lucas!" He shouted.

"No!" Lucas yelled back before turning his back prepared to dash upstairs and into his room.

Unfortunately for him, a hand stretched out of nowhere and grabbed him by the collar when he was on the stairs before pulling him to a certain place, "No, No! Let go of me!" he screamed.

"Come on, bro, we have work to do."

"You're just making me work for you!"

"Yep. That's exactly what you're gonna do for me." Shawn affirmed the accusation.

Eventually, both brothers were soon in the kitchen with aprons strewn across their waists, "I wonder what I should cook," Shawn wondered, holding the handle of the refrigerator before opening it.

"Hmm, what to cook for dinner? Lucas, remember, no phones in the kitchen. Do you want to burn the house down?!" he scolded his brother who was around the corner with his phone close to the window.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Lucas grumbled when Shawn resumed looking for ingredients to use and finally thought of something.

"Since it's rainy and the weather is cold. I might as well cook soup and some other things. Also, Dad would be returning home soon, so I might as well cook it swiftly."

He took the ingredients in the refrigerator and started to drop them on the counter while Lucas just stood there until Shawn spoke, "Better get to work," He said.

"You haven't given me anything to do."

"For starters, get the water boiled. There are always a lot of things to do when you're in the kitchen." He said while dropping ingredients on top of the counter.

He took a chopping board first and began to use the knife to cut the first thing that everyone couldn't help with.

ONIONS.

"I better use this to cover my eyes," he said, picking a pair of goggles from the counter before putting them in front of his eyes as before he began chopping the onions into smaller pieces. Then he took out mushrooms and chopped them, too.

"How's the water boiling going, Lucas?"

"It's going fine," Lucas replied.

"Get the vegetables ready then,"

Lucas came to the counter, took the vegetables on the counter, and washed them before he also took a knife and began cutting them.

Meanwhile, Shawn opened the fridge and brought out some pieces of chicken, which he cut into smaller parts and removed some parts that he would pour into the pot later.

"Is the water getting boiled?".

"No, not yet."

"When we are done we should also prepare noodles," Lucas suggested while staring at the pot.

"Ok," said Shawn as Lucas resumed cutting the vegetables rapidly.

"Don't cut your hand."

"I won't."

When it was time, they took the noodles and added them to the water. Shawn, on the other hand, was done with slicing the chicken and taking them away using the chopping board before pouring them into the pot. He poured the chicken into the pot and added salt, then covered the pot and set his mind back to the chopping board, this time chopping carrots.

He gave the onions, mushrooms, and vegetables to Lucas to add to the broth.

A few minutes passed, and Lucas opened the pot to see that there was excess foam that needed to be skimmed. When he was done with that, the onions, mushroom, and garlic, along with the vegetables, would then be poured in while they would wait for some time as Shawn came to add carrots into the fray.