Liam looked at his hands, then at the women surrounding him.

Am I forcing this on them? he wondered, a rare flicker of self-doubt crossing his mind. I’m just a guy who knows how to sear a steak and happened to land a 10,000x buff. But to them, I’m some kind of god-tier Vanguard. They’re looking at me like I’m the answer to every prayer they’ve ever had. Is it just the family looks? The power? I hope I’m not just another ’rich guy’ taking what he wants.

He looked at Midnight. The dragon girl was trembling, her sapphire hair shielding her face, but she was leaning just slightly towards him.

Fuck those Ruby Eyed guys, Liam’s thoughts turned sharp. Calling her trash. Tearing off her insignia like she’s a broken tool. I don’t care if she tried to rob me; no one gets treated like that in my kitchen or my party. She’s a refugee now, and she’s under my roof.

[Mirra POV]

Mirra let out a sharp, jagged scoff. She adjusted the leather strap of her armour, her lion ears twitching with bored contempt as she watched Barbosa struggle to find his feet.

"Is that the best the Ruby Eyed Guild has to offer?" she asked the room at large, her voice dripping with honeyed poison. "A ’leader’ who gets pinned by a man holding a thermal lunch box? Honestly, Barbosa, the local goblins have better footwork than you. It’s embarrassing to even share the same air."

In the corner of the hall, near a pile of raid crates, Rogue was still a crumpled heap of despair.

"My son..." he whimpered, his fingers scratching at the floorboards. "He would have had such beautiful scales; he would have called me Papa. And now... he’s just a defence buff. Life is cruel! Why is the Omurice so delicious?!"

Mirra rolled her eyes. "He’s still crying, and Liam, if we don’t get into the portal soon, the boy is going to dehydrate himself.

Also, he’s getting snot on the guild floor."

Liam didn’t respond. He was too busy watching the interaction between his party members. He was starting to notice a pattern, a strange, magnetic pull. It wasn’t just Elizabeth anymore, the way Berry’s tail brushed his arm "by accident," the way Noir lingered in his personal space, the way Mirra looked at him like he was the most interesting prey in the forest...

Is it the food? Liam thought, genuinely confused. Maybe I’m overseasoning them; they seem... hyper-fixated. I know Elizabeth is interested in me, I think, after the roll in the mud and last night, but the others? They must just be hungry; high-level combat burns a lot of calories.

[Elizabeth’s POV]

Elizabeth felt a strange, tight knot in her chest. She remembered the "Stamina" comment from the night before, the way his breath had felt against her neck, and the raw, unbridled heat of his body. She wanted to be angry. She wanted to demand why he was suddenly collecting every rare beast-kin in the Areos. But seeing him stand up to Barbosa, seeing him treat a "failure" like a human being, made her heart do a traitorous little flip. He’s such an idiot, she thought, her fingers tracing the edge of her shield. A big, oblivious, terrifyingly attractive idiot. He thinks he’s just a cook, but he doesn’t realise he’s the centre of the world right now. And God, why is he so hot? Literally, I need to make sure I beat the other girls to the goal; I have to be first, right?

[Midnight’s POV]

Midnight felt like she was floating in a dream. The crushing weight of the world, the shame of being "kicked," the physical pain of her torn skin... it had all been replaced by this strange, warm tether. For the first time in her life, she wasn’t being evaluated for her abilities. In the real world, her family looked down on her for not being good enough. At school, she was shunned for not being smart enough or pretty enough, but here... She was being told she needed "iron" and "protein." Who is this man? she wondered, staring at the back of Liam’s neck. He destroyed my leader without even drawing a blade. He looks at me like I’m a person, not a shadow. Is this what it feels like to have a home, a family?

Berry nodded, her tail brushing against Midnight’s in a silent gesture of solidarity. "Don’t worry, Liam’s a block of wood, but he’s a sturdy one. You’re safe behind him." 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

Midnight stood between them, stunned. She had spent two weeks being "the tool," and in five minutes, this man had shattered her world and rebuilt it into something... different.

Liam cleared his throat, the sound like a low rumble of thunder. "The others are moving out. Let’s fall in."

He didn’t realise that the groups of women moving through the hall weren’t just random players. They were members of a strictly secret organisation known as the [Silver Glacier Defence Force]. To Liam, they looked like disciplined Iron Hearth mages and archers, maintaining a professional distance. In reality, their "secret" private chat was currently exploding with coordinates and "body-guard" rotations to ensure they remained in his peripheral vision without him catching on.

They wore short tactical tunics—a uniform choice he assumed was a guild-wide standard for mobility, unaware it was a mandate voted on by the "Inner Circle" specifically for his aesthetic enjoyment.

[The "G-Cup" Override]:

A hidden mechanic unique to the Guild Master (Berry). When activated, it forces Liam’s gaze to calibrate to maximum zoom.

Warning: May cause the Chef to sneeze or become "Conveniently Oblivious" to avoid a System Crash.

[System Note]: "They don’t care about the Catacombs. They don’t care about the loot. They just want to know if the Chef is wearing a towel again. This is the most dangerous guild in the server, mostly because they’re willing to share the man but not the soup."