She sighed, putting two and two together. "You didn’t give modern ones, huh? Because you want to stress out?"
Still nothing.
"...Or save from asking a thousand questions?"
The air around her sparkled faintly, like Bubu was laughing in binary.
"Yeah. I’m going with the first," she muttered.
Her hand dropped from the jug as she stepped back and exhaled through her nose. "You know what?... I don’t care." She straightened up and pulled her hair into a ssy twist like she was about to host a cooking show in prehistoric tis. "Let’s do this."
Then, with an elegant flick of her wrist and a totally unearned confidence, Isabella turned back to gather her weird, ancient soap-making tools like it was the most normal thing in the world.
"Bubu, place these in my space so it’ll be easier to carry them around," Isabella said, tilting her chin at the floating, semi-transparent screen glowing above the field of packed dirt.
The wind stirred dry grass nearby, rustling against the curved walls of her hut made from stacked mud bricks and woven leaves. But the screen remained unimpressed.
"What happened to your hand, user? You don’t seem crippled," Bubu replied, tone flat—yet sohow, so very smug.
Isabella stood motionless for a mont, blinking slowly as if her brain had glitched. "What..." she whispered under her breath. "What did I ever do to deserve this?"
Maybe Bubu had been human in a past life. A really petty one. Possibly an unpaid intern.
She inhaled deeply, the sun-ward air brushing her skin like dry cloth as she tried to calm herself. She could argue. She wanted to argue. But she’d lived through enough of Bubu’s passive-aggressive "punishnts" to know where that road led. Random quests. Extra tasks. Sudden penalty fees. Last ti, Bubu almost made her clean beast droppings to "develop ntal resilience."
Nope.
"OPEHLIA!!!" she bellowed toward the open field, uncaring that birds scattered from nearby trees. There was no way she was about to carry this junk or beg the system. Not unless the world flipped upside down and she grew a second head.
Yeah, she’d rather roll in a termite mound.
The screen went quiet.
"..." Bubu said at last, dry as the desert wind. "Why do I even bother?"
Isabella crossed her arms smugly, but Bubu wasn’t finished.
"When do you plan to start cultivating?" the system asked out of nowhere, and Isabella went stiff like soone just poured cold water down her back.
She cleared her throat and forced her voice to sound casual. "I’m busy, Bubu. We’ll speak later."
But Bubu wasn’t done. "I’ve given you enough ti to start on your own. Now you’re slacking off. Do not bla if anything happens."
A sharp chill crawled down Isabella’s spine. The warm sun suddenly felt distant.
She frowned, biting her lip. Was that a threat? A warning? Sothing about the tone didn’t sit right. But before she could linger, the thudding of bare feet across hardened soil reached her ears.
"I’m here!" Opehlia chirped, breathless but bright-eyed. "You called?" She said with a wide smile.
Isabella snapped out of her thoughts. "Yeah, um... Where’s Cyrus?" she asked, glancing over Opehlia’s shoulder even though she hadn’t summoned him.
"Oh, he went off to deal with sothing. He said he’ll be back soon," Opehlia replied, now completely distracted by the strange, rustic tools spread across the sun-drenched clearing.
Their surfaces glinted with odd finishes—pale green vines threaded into the handle of a stone whisk, the sheen of the serpent-shell jug catching the light. They looked like artifacts from another age. Raw. Hand-carved. Powerful.
"Should I take these inside?" Opehlia asked, already reaching toward a carved scoop that resembled a hollowed-out horn.
"That’s why I called you over," Isabella said with a faint smile, watching her bounce with excitent. From the corner of her eye, she caught movent—Luca, tall and quiet, approaching with slow steps.
"I’ll help too," Luca said, stepping forward.
He bent down and, with little effort, lifted the massive stone cauldron and grinder, muscles shifting beneath his sun-kissed skin. But just as he straightened, he paused—stone tools in hand—his gaze flicking briefly toward Isabella like he wanted to say sothing but didn’t.
Isabella glanced at him, then rolled her eyes with a huff as she walked past. "Still don’t know where Shelia is Luca," she muttered under her breath, mostly to herself.
Now standing just before the threshold of her hut, Isabella glanced up at the sky. The sun hung lower, casting long shadows across the cracked earth. Mid-afternoon, maybe later.
And despite everything—the weight of Bubu’s warning, the strange tools, the serpent shell jug—her chest filled with lightness.
Because finally, these soaps would be hers. Never-ending, always accessible, and best of all... magical.
She paused.
Wait. No. That wasn’t the right thing to be happy about.
The real joy ca from how fast she could produce the soaps now. The ingredients from the mountain weren’t ordinary. Unlike forest herbs, these had a latent energy to them. They shimred faintly, slled stronger, pulsed slightly when touched.
She’d tested a few by accident earlier and her hands still tingled.
With a deep breath, she stared at the collection of ancient-looking tools and natural ingredients spread before her.
It was like stepping into a forgotten age—where everything was hands-on, warm from the sun, gritty with earth. It slled like dried herbs, smoke, and power. And yet—
It felt like being a little girl again.
Back when her world was small. When mixing soaps was a ga, not a strategy for survival.
"Isabella, why are you staring at them like that?" Opehlia asked, tilting her head.
Still smiling faintly, Isabella replied without turning. "It reminds of being a child. Soap making. Playing around."
Opehlia’s eyes softened. "Oh... so you must have had a lot of ti to play around and be happy when you were little."
Isabella turned slowly, the smile never leaving her lips—but now it was thinner. Sharper.
"Oh no," she said brightly. "I was too busy being perfect."
Opehlia blinked. Her smile vanished like a puff of smoke.
"You know, with parents and everybody always demanding sothing from ," Isabella continued airily, already turning back to the tools.
"I had to be perfect."
And just like that, she snapped back into focus—kneeling beside the equipnt, sorting the serpent jug from the herb masher, tone cool and steady like she hadn’t just shattered the mood.
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