Chapter 93: Lost on What to Do? Let's Throw a Banquet!
The acrid scent of gunpowder lingering over the battlefield finally scattered, carried away by the cool desert wind.
Night fell without warning.
Yet, unlike the usual freezing desolation of the Server Continent's wastelands, tonight carried a completely different weight. The darkness felt alive, buzzing with warmth and boisterous cheer.
Beneath a canopy of crystal-clear stars, dozens of Digimon huddled around a massive, roaring bonfire. They were preparing for a feast. This was not just a celebration of their hard-fought victory that morning, but a toast to the new lives they were about to begin.
The venue was admittedly crude. The shattered ruins of the dark Pyramid loomed in the background, surrounded by an endless sea of sand. But not a single soul present cared.
Aside from a select few, the vast majority of Digimon paid zero attention to their dining environment—unless it was completely unsanitary, of course.
More, their attention was entirely hijacked by the mouth-watering aromas wafting from the center of the camp.
"Lord Mizuki! Lord Mizuki! What is this one?"
"And this one?"
Surrounded by dozens of wide, expectant eyes, Mizuki stood before a massive iron wok, expertly tossing its contents. He wiped a bead of sweat from his brow, glancing at the bubbling pot beside him.
"This is braised pork knuckle," he replied, his voice carrying a gentle amusement. "Made from premium Digimon meat."
"Ooh! Then what about that one?"
"Those are Four Joy Meatballs."
"And this one? This one!"
"Steamed pork belly with preserved mustard greens."
As he answered the rapid-fire questions from the drooling crowd, Mizuki cast a subtle glance toward the mountain of ingredients piled up nearby.
The Pyramid had been leveled during the battle, but by some stroke of luck, the underground storage warehouse had survived relatively intact. Naturally, Mizuki and his companions had raided the entire stockpile to fund tonight's banquet.
'It is a good haul,'Mizuki mused inwardly, eyeing the massive slabs of raw protein.'Though, technically, this is all just generic Digimon meat harvested from the digital meat fields.'He picked up a ladle, stirring the rich, dark sauce bubbling around the pork belly.'I wonder if I can actually replicate the authentic texture and flavor with these data constructs...'
Pushing the thought aside, Mizuki scooped a massive portion of food into a metal basin and handed it to a bouncing Agumon nearby.
"Here, take this over to the main table," Mizuki instructed. "Careful now, the basin is scorching hot."
"Mhm, mhm! Leave it to me!"
The Agumon puffed out his chest, offering a confident salute. Thick streams of drool were already leaking from the corners of his mouth, but his reptilian eyes burned with absolute determination. He balanced the scalding basin with sheer willpower.
Truly, a textbook example of Vaccine-type dedication.
Compared to him...
Mizuki slowly shifted his gaze. A few feet away, a certain BlackGatomon was aggressively pawing at her own mouth, tears pricking the corners of her eyes after trying to sneak a bite of boiling hot meat.
"Sigh. That is exactly why I told you to watch the heat," Mizuki said, shaking his head with a helpless smile. He set down his ladle and walked over, crouching beside her.
"Come here. Stick your tongue out so I can check."
"Wuwuwu..."
The BlackGatomon looked up at him with utter misery, obediently sticking out her tiny, pink, scalded tongue.
Mizuki leaned in, inspecting the burn. "Let me see... Alright. Nothing a little localized data tweaking cannot fix. There. All done."
After applying a brief, soothing pulse of his Digi-Soul to heal the minor burn, Mizuki reached out and gently stroked her drooping, disappointed ears.
"You are fine now. Good as new."
He scratched the sweet spot right behind her ear, his voice softening. "You can eat as much as you want tonight. There is no need to sneak around and steal bites. Just remember to blow on it first, okay?"
"Ngh..."
The BlackGatomon stared up at him, completely dazed. Looking into the young man's warm, gentle eyes, she entirely forgot about the throbbing pain in her mouth—and the piece of meat she had just dropped.
The moment Mizuki stood up and walked back to the wok, the surrounding BlackGatomon swarmed her like a pack of angry hornets.
"You shameless scoundrel! How dare you use such a despicable, underhanded tactic to monopolize Lord Mizuki's attention!"
"I am so jealous I could die! You got head pats! I have never even gotten a head pat!"
"Who do you think you are fooling with that pitiful act? My fur is clearly much shinier than yours!"
The feline Digimon hissed and bickered, claws unsheathing as the jealousy reached a boiling point.
However, before they could escalate into a full-blown brawl, a towering figure radiating pure, concentrated resentment materialized silently behind them.
"Heh heh. You little brats. You actually have the nerve to slack off and cause a scene here."
The BlackGatomon froze. The temperature plummeted.
"Lord Mizuki is exhausting himself preparing a feast for you, and this is how you repay him? Do you even possess the basic self-awareness required to be Lord Mizuki's subordin—" The figure caught herself, clearing her throat sharply. "Ahem. His companions!"
Only after sensing Mizuki's distant gaze shift away did LadyDevimon let out a quiet exhale, dropping her rigid posture.
She glared down at the trembling BlackGatomon at her feet. "What are you idiots standing around for? Hurry up and get back to work!"
"Yes, ma'am!!!" the cats shrieked in unison.
They scattered instantly, diving back into their prep duties. As the old saying went, everything in the world had a natural predator. The rowdy, chaotic BlackGatomon could not muster a single ounce of rebellion in the presence of LadyDevimon.
Watching this brutal display of hierarchy from a safe distance, MetalGreymon leaned down, his massive mechanical jaw clicking as he whispered.
"Speaking of which... is it just me, or is LadyDevimon's temper a little too volatile lately?"
"I do not know. Has she not always been like this?" SkullGreymon scratched his bone-plated skull, his hollow eye sockets conveying genuine confusion.
"I mean, sure, but this is extreme. Maybe it is menopau— cough, cough!"
MetalGreymon (Blue) choked on his own words, his metallic eyes widening in sheer terror as his survival instincts screamed at him. He snapped his jaw shut.
It was too late.
In the very next second, LadyDevimon's ghostly, gothic figure materialized directly in front of their massive snouts.
"And just who do you think I am doing all this for?!"
LadyDevimon shrieked, her crimson eyes glaring daggers at the towering behemoths in front of her.
The root of her fury was simple. Everyone had agreed to throw a banquet. However, the sheer physical size of MetalGreymon (Blue) and his massive companions presented a logistical nightmare. If they sat at the table, they would accidentally crush the food, the plates, and likely half the smaller Digimon.
To ensure they could properly enjoy the feast, Mizuki had originally offered to use his Digi-Soul to temporarily rewrite their data, shrinking them down to a manageable size.
LadyDevimon had immediately vetoed the idea.
"Lord Mizuki, you have already exhausted yourself enough for our sake," she had declared proudly. "If these meatheads need your help for something as trivial as data compression, they might as well just sit in the dirt and watch us eat from the sidelines."
Taking matters into her own hands, LadyDevimon had volunteered to teach the giant Digimon how to compress their own data cores, allowing them to temporarily regress to their smaller Rookie forms.
It sounded simple in theory.
In practice, LadyDevimon's mood had rapidly deteriorated from fiery determination to absolute, soul-crushing despair.
'Why can they not grasp this?!'she screamed internally, her eye twitching.'I learned this technique on the first try! It is entirely their fault!'If these colossal idiots had not spent the last six hours failing to grasp the most basic concepts of data compression, would she be stuck out here babysitting them?'Wuwuwu... I want to be over there helping Lord Mizuki cook too.'
LadyDevimon cast a deeply envious glare toward the cooking station. Belle was standing right next to Mizuki, happily handing him spices and basking in his warm presence.
Grinding her teeth, LadyDevimon snapped her attention back to the towering idiots looming over her.
"Listen to me very carefully," she hissed, her voice dropping to a dangerous, deadly whisper. "Starting right now, if you fail to master data compression within the next ten minutes, I am going to take my dark spike and stab you all right in the ass!"
"Understood?!"
"Yes, ma'am!" the eight massive Digimon roared in unison, the ground shaking with their volume.
Silence hung in the air for a brief moment.
Then, MetalGreymon blinked his organic eye, looking down at the comparatively tiny, slender form of LadyDevimon. Without thinking, he blurted out, "The butt? Really? LadyDevimon, I never would have guessed you were into such kinky stuff."
He let out a booming chuckle. "Also... I do not mean to look down on you, LadyDevimon, but seeing how small you are, your little spike probably could not even pierce our armor— Mmph! Wuwuwu!"
Before he could finish his suicidal sentence, MetalGreymon (Blue) and SkullGreymon lunged forward, desperately clamping their massive claws over his mouth to muffle his voice.
At the exact same time, the two Megadramon hovering nearby slammed their serpentine tails into his back, hissing in sheer panic.
"Big Brother, for the love of the Digital World, just shut your mouth!"
"Stop provoking the Big Sister Leader! Do you want to get us all killed?!"
"Heh. Heh heh..."
Hearing the muffled protests and watching the giant cyborgs scramble, the forced, strained smile on LadyDevimon's face finally shattered into a million pieces.
"Hahahaha..."
Amidst a series of eerie, terrifying laughs that echoed across the dark desert, LadyDevimon slowly raised her left arm. The dark, poisonous spike attached to her wrist gleamed dangerously in the firelight.
Her sanity snapped.
'No! I cannot take this anymore!'
"I am going to blast you all to pieces, meow—!"
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