Chefluencer by Day, Demon Hunter by Night-Chapter 16: A Loud Morning

The next morning, Dravin poured honey over the French toast he had just taken from the pan.

He had such a deep, good night’s sleep that he hadn’t even bothered with his phone alarm. 𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮

It was the tapping of a woodpecker outside the window that had finally opened his eyes, allowing him to see the hesitant rays of dawn.

It had been maybe a year or more since his muscles felt this relaxed from a good night’s sleep; his severe insomnia had been a constant companion since his schedule became packed.

He used to eat sweets to keep his positive energy running all day long, but since he wanted to start maintaining a strict diet, natural honey was the best dopamine booster.

The sizzling sound of egg white spreading over the pan made Dravin pour a second egg next to it.

He no longer had to skimp on eggs—he would buy a tray of thirty later.

To start building muscle, Dravin needed to eat at least two eggs every morning.

Dravin wiped a splash of oil that landed on the back of his hand from the sputtering egg.

He smirked, the sting reminding him of Elena, who was always afraid of frying eggs due to the spitting oil.

He sighed heavily, remembering he hadn’t told her fiancé that Elena liked her eggs sunny-side up, yolk intact at the center.

Hah... whatever, they’ll figure out their own problems. Elena... just live well. I will live well here too. Let’s live well together.

Dravin set his plate on the table, which held honey-drenched French toast, two sunny-side-up eggs that looked like eyes, and some sliced cherry tomatoes and lettuce.

Before he could eat, he summoned the system, but the new task still hadn’t appeared.

Seeing the new task still not assigned, Dravin decided to take care of his private matters first before directly jumping to the blueprint targets.

He needed to come up with a new strategy anyway. And by ’private matters,’ he meant one thing:

He needed to move out of this tiny, suffocating apartment. He would visit a real estate agent today.

KRAK! Followed by a deep, muffled WHUMP!

Dravin’s shoulders reflexively hitched at the sudden noise.

He watched the pots hanging on the wall sway.

A quake? But nothing else in the apartment was shaking, nor was the floor trembling.

Moments later, his ears caught the sound of a woman screaming and coughing.

His hand reached for the doorknob and opened it.

As his foot stepped out, his confused gaze met the deep blue eyes of Siena, which were wavering with fear. She stood there, her entire body shaking in shock.

"Siena... what’s wrong? Why you—" Dravin couldn’t finish the question.

As he moved toward her, thick smoke billowed from inside her apartment. A wave of acrid, chemical smoke hit him.

He retreated from Siena’s door, pulling her back and waving his hand to clear the smoke, which made him cough slightly.

"What the—why... is this a fire? Shit... why isn’t the fire alarm going off?" Dravin said, half-panicked. "Ah... it’s broken."

The memory snapped back: there had been an announcement months ago that the alarms were broken and never fixed because the developer had neglected the issue.

This fact instantly fueled his urge to move to a more decent dwelling.

Dravin turned to Siena, whose cheeks were blackened with residue.

"Siena, are you okay? Wait here, I’ll call the fire department, and we should go down."

As Dravin moved to step back toward his apartment, Siena’s hand clamped down on his arm.

"Dravin..." Her voice was low and wavering. "Ther—there is no fire. It’s just... it’s..." Her gaze dropped.

She bit her lower lip, and he could feel her grip trembling faintly, like a scared cat freezing in the rain.

Hearing there was no actual fire made Dravin sigh in relief.

He gently placed his palm on her knuckle. "Siena, take a deep breath. Follow me a moment."

They both met eyes and took a slow breath. Once he felt she was more stable, he asked, "So tell me what happened. Why is there so much smoke that smells like something burned?"

"That’s from my microwave. It blew up. When the microwave made a popping sound inside, I immediately cut off my apartment’s central electricity. Once the popping stopped, I was going to try and open the microwave with a stick, but... before I could, black smoke immediately poured out, scaring me, and I ran straight outside."

Dravin frowned. Hearing electrical equipment blow up instantly reminded him of the final moments of his previous life.

He glanced back into Siena’s apartment, where the smoke was starting to clear, and reflexively flinched backward.

"Siena, I think we should really call the fire department. It’s too dangerous for us alone," Dravin insisted.

But Siena was too eager to stop Dravin from going back to pick up his phone.

"No, please. I... I don’t want to cause a commotion. The fact that this might wake up the neighbors already makes me feel bad for disturbing them. I don’t want this to get busy," she pleaded, tightening her grip on Dravin’s hand.

"Besides, I’m sure it’s fine now, there is no fire inside. The electricity is already off. It just needs the smoke to be gone," she continued.

What the hell is wrong with this woman? What is she really trying to say? She’s worried about annoying the neighbors? Goddamn it! Does she want the neighbors to burn alive in their sleep just to avoid bothering them? Dravin fumed internally.

"But Siena..." He forced his voice to soften. "This is not a simple matter. What if there’s a chain reaction explosion and the fire starts again? It would make all of us burn alive. We need—"

"I said I don’t want it to get busy!" she yelped. "Are you deaf? I didn’t even ask you to help me. You can just pretend not to see it and go back to your apartment. I’m fine alone." Her voice was ragged with annoyance, her breath coming in choked gasps.

Despite the forced anger in her words, the twitch on the corner of her lips, caused by biting the inside of her cheek, seemed to say the opposite—that she desperately needed help.

Ding!

<Aura -2000 for being so nosy, crossing the line, and causing her frustration. Very unhelpful.>

<Aura: 9,000/1,000,000>

Shit!