'She's a glutton!' Dylan Ford could not help but think of that after listening to Scarlet's requests.
"Fine." But then again, he could only do what was asked from him since he already had given his word so naturally he will do as he has promised.
"You're the best, Big Bro!" Scarlet cheered, jumping up and down with pure joy, her bright eyes flashing.
"..." The word 'Bro' hit Dylan like a physical blow to the chest.
Scarlet had already called him "Big Bro" earlier but it was muffled due to the roughhousing earlier. This time, the way she said it was so crisp that it made him remember Dale.
For a fraction of a second, the old antique room faded, replaced by the sterile, rain-slicked glass of in his high-rise office on Earth.
He could almost hear another voice smooth, deeply trusted, and utterly venomous calling him 'Big Bro' while they discussed the contents of the document at the desk.
A cold sweat threatened to break out on his neck. He forced his hands into his pockets so she wouldn't see them shake.
"I know, I know. Now, go wait at the dining table, okay?" Dylan said. He tried to keep his voice lighthearted, but to his own ears, it sounded strained, hollowed out by sudden caution. He waved a hand dismissively as he turned to leave.
"I will!" Scarlet beamed, entirely oblivious to the sudden wall her words had built between them. She instantly sprinted toward the stairs, her light footsteps echoing as she made her way down to the dining area.
===
Dylan Ford browsed through the younger Dylan's memories and immediately understood the overall layout of the house.
He could not help but wonder about this house as he went downstairs. Despite its antiquity, one could tell that this was a house that was originally owned by a rich noble that is likely to be deceased.
"This house is run-down but very well-maintained. I guess that "Dylan" was quite diligent in cleaning this entire house." Dylan Ford commented.
'Its also interesting that they were able to keep this house due to the rumors of the fox ghosts that appear around this house. Isn't that due to Scarlet?' The local folktale of fox spirits appearing was true since he did see them lots of times in the younger Dylan's memories.
'Those fox spirits follow and protect Scarlet, it seems. I wonder...'
===
While walking, Dylan searched the memories the past him had on Scarlet. Then, he quickly found it as he viewed it.
The younger Dylan who was around ten years old in this time, was hunting in the nearby forests of the town. He was wary not to encounter any strong Mystical Beast since he did not have that much power to begin with.
I heard something in this direction..." the younger Dylan in the memory murmured, peering cautiously through the thick brush.
"What in the world...?! There's supposed to be a series of small mountains here..." He had frozen in absolute disbelief. The familiar landscape was completely unrecognizable. The entire range of small mountains had been utterly obliterated, charred to cinder by a terrifying, unknown force.
From the smoking ruins, it looked as though a colossal, catastrophic entity had torn through the solid stone, melting and shattering the peaks simultaneously. The evidence was undeniable in the charcoal-black, jagged crescents remains of the mountains. Several dozen of these mountains had been reduced to nothing but smoking craters.
The youth's eyes had followed the wide trail of decimation, tracing the path of destruction until they landed on a speck of bright color at the very epicenter of the blast zone.
It was a scarlet-haired infant, swaddled in scorched cloth. She seemed to be around one or two years old at this time already.
"Uwaaah! Uwaaaah! Uwaaaah!"
"What's a baby doing out here?" Dylan had breathed, finding the infant crying fiercely in the crater of what used to be the final, largest mountain.
The young hunter hadn't understood what was happening before him, but his instincts overrode his fear. He knew he couldn't leave this child to die.
"There is no one here..."
He had scanned the ruined landscape, looking for a mother, a traveler, or a beast, but there were no signs of any living soul in the vicinity.
"I guess you're Scarlet, aren't you?"
Feeling a profound pity for the abandoned, miraculously unharmed baby girl, he had scooped her up, adopted her, and named her Scarlet because of her beautiful, fiery hair.
===
'Was Scarlet the one responsible for destroying those mountain ranges just now?' Dylan had a scary thought but he could not eliminate the possibility especially since he was in a world of cultivators and mystical beasts right now.
It was a terrifying, absurd thought. But what truly frightened him wasn't her potential, monstrous power, it was the sick, mirroring irony of his own past.
'That Dylan found a helpless child in the dirt, and chose to raise her...'
While he didn't find Dale from the gutters, Dylan had fed him his own meager rations, worked himself to the bone to pay for his tuition, and built a multi-billion-dollar empire just to hand his little brother the world on a silver platter. And in return, Dale had slaughtered him.
There was still some similarities that seemed to be bothering him
'Am I doing it again?' Dylan's hands clenched into tight fists. 'Will I have to foster the same venom in a different name now- No, What am I even thinking?!'
"Oh, I think this is it."
Snapping out of his dark, suffocating trance, Dylan realized his feet had guided him straight to the cooking area, where the kitchen and storage rooms were located.
"It should be here, right?" Dylan said as he entered the cooking area.
Dylan walked to the storage room first so he could gather the ingredients for the meals that Scarlet requested.
Upon opening the storage area, he was stunned. A sudden draft of heavy, cellar-cold air rushed over him, a stark contrast to the warmth of the house. Back home on twenty-first-century Earth, a pantry was a sterile, brightly lit space of wire shelves and humming, stainless-steel refrigerators. Here, it was a dark, cool, vaulted stone room that felt like stepping straight into a historic museum or a survivalist's cellar.
"By the way it's designed, it seems to be a pantry and food storage like those 18th century pantry in Earth?" Dylan deduced from the way everything was laid out.
But Dylan was never used to comfort. He had even worse conditions as he was a street child. This damp, chilly stone room was luxury compared to where his previous life had started.
"This pantry quite cool, much better than what I had when I was a kid. Hahaha. I have cooked my meals in worse conditions when I was younger though."
The floor was made of cold, uneven flagstones, and the thick slate shelves on the walls seemed built to absorb heat. There was no glass on the tiny window, only a tight sheet of wire mesh to let the cool breeze circulate while keeping out pests. The air was thick with a complex, rustic scent. A sharp tang of vinegar, earthy mustiness, piney dried herbs, and the heavy, metallic musk of raw and salt-cured meat.
"The other Dylan seems to hunt quite often. Considering his strength, it is quite understandable. He has all kinds of meat from pork, chicken, beef, duck, etc." He could help but be impressed on Dylan's hunting skills.
Looking around, the sheer wealth of unprocessed food was staggering. On Earth, Dylan was used to buying neat, bloodless, plastic-wrapped portions from a supermarket shelf.
Here, entire ducks with iridescent green feathers still clinging to their wings hung from heavy iron hooks on the ceiling beams, right beside plump, plucked chickens. Huge wooden casks stood against the damp stone walls, filled with brine and coarse salt to preserve massive racks of pork, while deep red cuts of beef aged slowly in the coldest corner.
'Well, he must be a glutton in order to reach this level of muscle mass.' Dylan Ford commented as he once again looked at his bulging muscles.
"I think a whole chicken, pork ribs, milk, beef, potatoes, rice..." Dylan began gathering all the necessary ingredients one by one from the pantry.
"Seriously, this is too much food for a little girl... hahaha."
While preparing, he smiled to himself because he found that loving this new mischievous little sister of his was not that hard as he thought.
'I can't believe I am cooking for someone again. This someone just so happened to be a new younger sibling, huh?'
Maybe it was because of him inheriting the memories and feelings of the past Dylan that he was able to quickly develop filial feelings for Scarlet.
'The irony...' Dylan's expression suddenly grew cold.
Yet, the trauma that he had in his heart from the betrayal of his brother, Dale, was quietly making him feel conflicted.
The deep, jagged trauma festering in his heart from the ultimate betrayal of his brother, Dale, reared its ugly head, making him feel instantly conflicted.
Dale was the brother Dylan had sacrificed everything for. He had raised him, fed him, funded his education, and together, they had built a multi-national, multi-billion-dollar technological empire.
Dale had been his right-hand man, his closest confidant, and the only blood family he thought he had left. Yet, he had conspired with their bitterest enemies, brutally murdered Dylan and his wife, and orchestrated the absolute destruction of the company they built from the ground up.
The phantom pain of that betrayal burned. Dylan felt a sudden, suffocating wave of distrust, wondering if he would ever truly be able to open his heart to another human being again without waiting for the inevitable knife in the back.
The memory of his beautiful wife, Rose, flashed before his eyes. Because of his blind trust in Dale, he had failed to protect her. She had died in terror, a casualty of his own naivety.
'If I let myself love Scarlet,' a dark, paranoid voice whispered in his mind, 'if I let her become my weakness, I will fail her too. Or worse... she will be the one who finishes me.'
Dylan violently shook his head, forcing the dark thoughts into the corners of his mind. "This isn't like you, Dylan! You shouldn't implicate an innocent child!"
He made a silent, solemn vow in his heart. 'I will take care of this little girl. I will feed her, protect her, and keep her safe for the sake of the "Dylan" who saved her. But I will not love her. I cannot afford to.'
Carrying the massive haul of fresh ingredients, Dylan walked out of the storage room and stepped into the main kitchen. He methodically arranged his cooking tools and began washing and prepping the food under a stream of clean water.
"Let's start then."
Dylan gripped a heavy, well-honed iron knife and pulled over a thick wooden chopping board. The moment he began prepping the aromatics, his true expertise showed. His knife skills were nothing short of superb; the blade became a blur, dicing onions and mincing garlic with blinding speed and terrifying precision.
He had learned to cook out of sheer necessity during his rough childhood, experimenting countless times just to make scraps taste like a decent meal.
Using a damaged phone he salvaged in the dumps and stealing WiFi, he would often look up recipes and way to improve cooking. With a few NewTube videos about cooking, Dylan Ford was able to improve his cooking skills despite not having the proper equipment as long as he had the ingredients, knife, a cookware and a source of fire.
After several decades of practice and studying, he was eventually able to reach the level of expertise of professional chefs!
'Rose would often say that my cooking skills were up to par with chefs already.' Dylan chuckled softly, a bittersweet pang hitting his chest as he remembered his beautiful, late wife.
'She's always looked so incredibly cute when her face brightens up with every single meal I made for her...' Dylan continued to reminisce.
He paused, the knife resting against the board, his eyes staring blankly at the chopped garlic.
"I miss her so damn much..." Dylan whispered, his voice thick with a heavy, sudden melancholy.