Divine Milking System-Chapter 27 | My Conscience Is Like A Car Alarm I Am Actively Ignoring

Chapter 27: 27 | My Conscience Is Like A Car Alarm I Am Actively Ignoring

Holy shit. She said yes.

I walked into the dining hall two steps behind Naomi and spent the first thirty seconds doing math in my head that had nothing to do with lunch.

Seven o’clock. East field. One hour, probably. Isolated enough that nobody would be watching, open enough that she wouldn’t feel trapped. Naomi already had thirty-four percent attraction without me doing anything except existing near her and being mildly honest about getting one pull-up. That number was going to move tonight. The question was how far and how fast, because I had forty-seven hours left and Bronze tier was survivable but Silver tier was significantly better and Naomi was Silver.

The system wanted me to start with her. I was starting with her.

I grabbed a tray.

The lunch spread was legitimately good. The academy understood that seventeen-year-olds who could rip concrete with their bare hands needed actual calories, so the protein options were extensive and the portion sizes were not insulting. I built a plate around a grilled chicken breast with lemon herb seasoning, a salad with cucumber and tomato and a tahini dressing that smelled like it had real garlic in it, and grabbed a bottle of sparkling water from the cooler near the end of the line.

Naomi appeared at my elbow with a very similar plate, except she had added a dinner roll.

"You got sparkling water," she said.

"I like sparkling water."

"It tastes like disappointment."

"It tastes like commitment to hydration."

She picked up a regular water bottle and we moved toward the seating area where Belle’s blue hair was already visible from across the room.

Marc stood up when we got to the table, which was just a Marc thing apparently, the kind of guy who stands up when people approach. He’d changed back into the Obsidian uniform after gym and his glasses sat straight on his face and he looked like someone whose mom had raised him correctly.

"Jace, Naomi, good." He gestured broadly. "Meet Darius and Khalil."

Two guys I hadn’t cataloged yet. Darius was tall, dark-skinned, with the specific kind of shoulder width that suggested either excellent genetics or someone who had been lifting since middle school. He had a quiet energy, observant, the type who let rooms settle before deciding where he fit. Khalil was shorter with a wide smile and locs pulled back and the slightly manic brightness of someone who had been waiting all morning for the right audience.

"Sup," I said, and sat down.

"Sup," Darius said.

"BRO," Khalil said immediately, pointing at me, "you’re the guy who got one pull-up."

"I am that guy."

"Khalil," Marc said.

Darius looked at Khalil the way a parent looks at a child they love but find exhausting.

I ate my chicken. It was good. The lemon was real lemon.

Belle had been watching this entire exchange from across the table with the expression of someone cataloging information she hadn’t decided what to do with yet.

Her blue hair was still in the ponytail from gym, the asymmetric bangs framing the left side of her face, and she had the Obsidian blazer open.

I stared at the sandwich.

It was chicken salad. On white bread. With what appeared to be lettuce and nothing else.

"Out of everything in that entire dining hall," I said, "you chose a chicken salad sandwich." 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

Belle looked at me. "What’s wrong with chicken salad?"

"You have chicken." I pointed at my plate. "You have salad." I pointed at my salad. "Right there. Both things. Individually."

"This is way different and you know it."

"I genuinely do not know it."

"Chicken salad is its own thing."

"It is a lesser version of two better things combined into one worse thing."

"Who," Belle said, sitting up straighter, "would ever confuse chicken and salad for chicken salad? They are completely different experiences."

"One of those experiences involves mayonnaise."

"Mayonnaise is a binding agent."

"Mayonnaise is a personal failing."

Naomi, sitting next to me, was covering her mouth with her hand.

Belle pointed at me. "You are a chicken salad sandwich hater and I want it on record."

"Record it."

"I’m recording it. Marc, you heard him."

"I heard him," Marc confirmed, the traitor.

"I had it every day for lunch back home," Belle said, and some of the edge came off. "I’d get the chips from the vending machine and put them in the sandwich."

I stopped.

"Put the chips in the sandwich."

"Obviously."

"For the crunch."

"For the crunch and the salt."

I looked at her sandwich. I looked at her. "That sounds incredible."

"I KNOW."

"Why don’t you have chips right now?"

"They don’t sell them at the main line, I’d have to go to the Vault and they’re six points a bag."

"Six points."

"Six points for a bag of chips."

The Vault pricing was criminal.

"Next time get the chips," I said.

Belle looked at me with mild suspicion, like she was waiting for the rest of the sentence. When it didn’t come she ate a bite of her sandwich and looked out the window.

"It’s still good without them," she said.

"I believe you."

Naomi had been quietly eating her chicken and roll this entire time.

She had good posture even sitting down. Long back, easy shoulders, the pink and black striped hair falling over one side and catching the afternoon light coming through the glass walls.

I drank my sparkling water.

"I like your water choice," Naomi said quietly, to me.

"Thank you."

"I still think it tastes like disappointment."

"It tastes like a person who has made a decision."

She looked at the bottle. "What decision?"

"The decision to be slightly more sophisticated."

She laughed, and it was a real one, full, a little surprised. Belle glanced over at the sound and then looked back and forth between me and Naomi with an expression I recognized. Narrowed eyes. Small calculation happening behind them. She chewed a bite of her sandwich and looked at the ceiling and then back at her plate and shrugged one shoulder.

Ate her sandwich.

Didn’t say anything.

Smart girl.

"What’s your afternoon looking like?" Marc asked the table.

"Dungeon Ecology at one," Jordan said, appearing from nowhere with a tray and sliding into the seat next to Darius. I genuinely hadn’t seen him get food. He moved through spaces the way water does, finding the path of least resistance and taking it. He had a small bag of chips balanced on his tray.

"How did you get chips?" Belle said immediately.

Jordan looked at the chips. "Vending machine in the East Tower hallway. Near the bathrooms. Two points."

Belle stared at him.

"Two points," she said.

"Two points."

She looked at her chip-less sandwich. Something happened behind her eyes that was very specifically grief.

"Next time," I said.

"Next time," she agreed, with real feeling.

Jordan sat down and opened his chips and offered the bag to Darius first. Darius took one. Khalil took three. The bag came to me and I took one and it was good, it was a good chip, and Belle was watching this entire transaction from across the table with an expression that I respected tremendously.

"Two points," she said again, to no one.

"Dungeon Ecology and then free afternoon," I said, redirecting before she actually developed a grudge. "Garrett’s assessment is posted tonight?"

"Tomorrow morning," Marc said. "The app updates at six AM."

"Before we’ve seen the results," Darius said, speaking for the first time in a while. He had a measured way of entering conversations. Waited until he had something worth adding. "They want us to sit with it overnight."

"Psychological warfare," Jordan said, eating his chips.

"Basic management technique," Darius said. "Create the anxiety first. The ranking hits harder when you’ve already been stewing."

"Still works though," Khalil said. "I’ve been stewing since it happened."

"Stewing helps nothing," Jordan said.

"I know that. I’m still stewing."

The conversation moved to afternoon schedules and the app’s class navigation features, which Jordan confirmed everyone should have downloaded by now, directed at me specifically, and I showed him my screen with the app open to prove I had it, and he looked genuinely relieved.

Khalil wanted to know if anyone had seen the simulation complex yet and Darius said yes, he’d walked past it this morning, and it was exactly as large as advertised.

Marc said he’d looked up the ranking criteria from last year and was going to share the breakdown in the group chat.

I ate my salad.

Forty-seven hours left and a date at seven o’clock.

It wasn’t complicated. Naomi wasn’t complicated, not in the way Belle was complicated. Naomi was simple in the best possible way. She wanted to be seen. She wanted to be useful. She wanted someone to treat her like she was worth the time.

I could do that.

The part of me that had a conscience was noting this with some discomfort, and I acknowledged it the way you acknowledge a car alarm going off outside. Present. Noted. Not my immediate problem.

Belle tore off the last piece of her sandwich and ate it with the focused concentration of someone finishing a meal they had genuine feelings about.

"Good?" I asked.

"Good," she confirmed. "Better with chips but good."

"Tomorrow."

"Tomorrow," she said, like a vow.

Naomi leaned slightly in my direction and the sleeve of her blazer was almost touching mine.

I looked at my sparkling water.

I looked at the timer in the corner of my vision.

Forty-six hours and fifty-one minutes.

Seven o’clock was five hours away.

I picked up my fork and finished my salad.