The next morning.
A heavy, humid silence hung over the cabin.
In the center of the room was a bed, and on it lay ten-year-old Kay, his body swathed in bandages, moaning and sweating with fever.
The blow from the Royal Wyvern's tail had rattled his bones, and the torn wounds had carried a high fever through the night.
"Kay... I think I was wrong to say that. A man must grow strong, yes, but I shouldn't have spoken so thoughtlessly."
Ector placed a hand over his chest as he looked at his son's pale face. His only child had fought that massive beast to protect their home and returned in such a state.
I urged him to be strong, even sharing stories from my own childhood... but I am just his father.
Having my only child back like this weighed heavily on me.
"I'll go to the village healer and fetch some potions. I can't afford to skip today's duties. You just rest until I return."
With heavy steps, Ector grabbed his hammer and stepped outside.
Creak—thud.
No sooner had the door shut than the air inside the cabin shifted.
Eight little five-year-old ladies.
As if by silent accord, they flocked around Kay's bed. There was no playful sparkle in their eyes—only solemn resolve.
"Make way. I will go first."
Artoria stepped forward with a solemn expression.
"I must change big brother's cloth. As the eldest, it's my duty."
"Don't be ridiculous. You can't control your strength—you'll bruise his forehead."
Artoria Alter shoved the original Artoria aside with her hip and cut in.
"I'll do it. I'm more delicate than you."
"Oh my, Artoria Alter delicate? Who smashed down the door yesterday?"
Lily grinned and delivered a stinging fact. She held a damp cloth in her hand.
"I'll do it. I can use a bit of healing magic, after all."
"Healing magic? You almost killed me last time you tried it. It's too dangerous."
Artoria Caster blocked Lily with her staff.
In an instant, the bedside turned into a battlefield.
"Out of the way!"
"I will do it!"
"Leave big brother to me!"
Pushing and shoving broke out as they each tried to place a damp cloth on Kay's forehead.
Kay, groaning as if held by a nightmare, barely cracked his eyes open. His head pounded, and before him, eight little sisters were pinching each other's cheeks in the fray.
"Please... let me rest..."
At Kay's weak plea, the eight froze in place.
Artoria, eyes brimming with tears, took his hand.
"We're so sorry, big brother. We were too noisy..."
"Water... please... some water..."
Artoria X dashed forward at lightning speed with a cup of water to his lips—but in her haste she spilled half of it.
"Gack! Cough cough!"
"Oh no! I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!"
Clatter and chaos! Kay couldn't tell if they were nursing him or torturing him.
After the commotion subsided and Kay drifted back to sleep, the girls huddled in the kitchen for an emergency meeting.
"Big brother collapsed because he's low on energy."
Artoria Lancer folded her arms and analyzed the situation seriously.
"Then meat. Eating meat will give him strength."
Artoria Lancer Alter declared, and Lily countered,
"But chunk meat is too much for a patient. We need something he can digest easily."
"Then... porridge? Meat porridge?"
At Artoria Caster's suggestion, they all nodded and set to work.
Their menu: nutritious meat and barley porridge.
Of course there was no rice—barley was the only grain they could eat. They set to making a version of Briton-style meat kykeon.
The only problem: none of them had ever actually cooked. They'd always been served by Kay and never once picked up a kitchen knife—even though they were all five.
But their boundless confidence remained.
'We're geniuses. Cooking? We can figure it out just by looking.'
Perhaps thanks to Merlin's endless praises of their genius, their pride had long since tipped into arrogance.
And so began their great kitchen takeover.
"I'll handle the fire!"
Artoria Caster, the magic prodigy, brandished her staff confidently. She piled wood into the hearth and began her incantation.
Kuo-o-o-o-o~!!
It wasn't any ordinary flame. A furnace-like inferno surged back out of the hearth.
"Yikes! It's too hot!"
Lily screamed and backed away, while Caster flailed in panic.
"Idiot! Have you lost your mind? You'll burn the whole place down!"
Artoria Alter hurriedly tried to suppress the flames with a mana release, but the wind only fed the inferno.
In the end, Artoria X fetched a bucket of water from outside and doused it, finally quelling the flames. The kitchen was instantly covered in black soot.
"I'll cut the meat."
Artoria gripped the kitchen knife solemnly. Kay had dulled its blade to keep them from cutting themselves.
She placed a piece of wild boar on the cutting board and, like a knight steadying herself, prepared to slice.
"Haah!"
Crack!
The knife didn't slice—it crushed the meat. And in splitting, the cutting board snapped in half. The meat was reduced to an unrecognizable pulp.
"...The knife must be too dull."
"Let's call it finely minced, ready to eat."
Artoria X Alter shrugged and accepted it as inevitable.
They poured water into a pot, dumped in the mashed meat and barley.
But water control was a problem.
"Isn't that too little water?"
"Really?"
Lily's comment prompted Artoria X to add another bucket, causing the pot to slosh.
"Too much! This is soup now!"
At Artoria Lancer Alter's complaint, Caster had an inspired suggestion:
"Then we'll just add more barley."
She dumped the entire sack of barley into the pot.
And so it became half barley, half water; the pot was already at maximum capacity.
Bubble... gurgle...
The pot began to boil, emitting an odd stench of fish and grass.
At that moment, Artoria X Alter quietly fished something from her pocket.
"...It doesn't look tasty."
"Do you have something better?"
"This is the emergency ration Brother gave me for when he's in a pinch."
She held out the sugar lumps and cacao pods Kay had secretly made for himself: his hard-won primitive chocolate.
Why cacao existed in Britain was not a question worth asking. In fifth-century Britain—called the navel of the earth—common sense didn't apply.
They reasoned the patient needed sugar.
"Add it! Sweet makes it delicious!"
Artoria Lancer Alter exclaimed, and they immediately dropped the chocolate into the pot.
Splash.
The dark chocolate and sugar disappeared into the pot.
And Artoria X insisted the porridge needed cosmic flavor, sprinkling an unknown powder—one of Kay's hard-earned seasonings.
Bubble... gurgle...
The color of the porridge shifted. What should have been a golden barley porridge turned into a thick, dark purple lava.
The bottom charred and stuck, the top remained undercooked, and a chaotic odor of burnt sugar, chocolate, and meat filled the air.
"...Why is the color like this?"
Artoria Alter broke into a cold sweat, sensing something was wrong.
"It's probably from adding soy sauce... I guess."
As Artoria turned away, denying reality, Artoria Lancer asked,
"Anyone brave enough to taste it?"
They all fell silent. Their genius instincts warned them that eating it would be dangerous.
But there was no time or ingredients to start over.
"Brother's strong... he'll be fine."
And thus the five-year-olds' reckless monstrosity was born.
Thirty minutes later, in the bedroom.
Kay forced himself to sit up.
The door opened and the eight little sisters entered, expressions solemn.
Artoria carried a bowl steaming with porridge.
"Big brother, it's time to eat."
Kay looked down at the bowl.
It was not porridge.
It was an abyss.
It was a deep purple-black, with strange lumps floating on the surface. The odor... a bizarre mix of char and sweetness.
"...What is this?"
"Meat barley porridge!"
Lily said cheerfully, believing that good ingredients meant a good taste despite its appearance.
"We... we worked so hard on it."
In contrast, Artoria X Alter, noticing how awful it looked, spoke with an uncertain voice.
All eight pairs of eyes pierced into Kay.
Kay swallowed hard, cold sweat rolling down his back.
His survival instincts—honed over five years hunting bears and foraging poison—sounded the alarm.
But those tiny, fern-like hands, faces smudged with soot...
He could still see the mayhem they'd caused in the kitchen for his sake.
'Alright... I suppose there's only one option. They cooked this for me.'
Kay lifted a spoon with trembling hands.
He scooped up a heaping spoonful of the black lava.
Then he clenched his eyes shut and put it in his mouth.
"...!!"
An explosion went off in his mouth.
Undercooked barley crunched like sand, the charred taste slammed his tongue, then out of nowhere the sweetness of chocolate surged upward, and at the end the fishy meat stench hit his nose.
This was not a meal. It was a punishment game.
"O... big brother?"
"Is it... is it bad?"
Artoria Lancer and Artoria Lancer Alter asked.
The girls' faces fell just as Kay realized...
But he forced his throat open and swallowed the horrific substance.
Then, in the greatest act of ten-year-old acting he had ever performed, he brightened his face and smiled.
"...It's delicious."
Silence.
The girls' eyes went wide.
"R-really?"
"Is it not a lie?"
"It's true. The seasoning is perfect. The char... well, it's like it's smoked, I guess, so I like that."
Without stopping his spoon, Kay continued to eat. He felt tears prick at the corners of his eyes and pretended to brush them away as tears of joy—the weary effort of being the provider.
"It's the first meal you all made me. Of everything I've ever eaten... this is the best, and the warmest."
He meant it. Though it tasted worse than anything, the warmth it carried to his heart was real.
Their hearts, innocent but determined to save their brother, were beautiful and precious.
"Waaah! Big brother!!"
Lily broke into tears first and clung to Kay.
The others tumbled onto the bed in a rush behind her.
In that narrow bed...
A bandaged patient and eight little girls.
Kay felt like he might be buried and crushed beneath them, but he didn't push them away. Their warmth seemed to heal his wounds faster than any potion.
"Thank you, girls. Truly."
He patted their heads and gently rubbed their backs.
As he did, the girls exchanged determined looks with each other.
'We will protect our big brother.'
'And... we really must practice cooking properly.'
Outside the window, the sunset glowed red.
The char-flavored porridge and the riotous sound of laughter.
It was the simplest, most precious piece of happiness shared by a king and his knights destined to bear the future of Britain.