I Thought I Was Collecting Systems, Not Overpowered Wives

Chapter 72: Saga 72: Domestic Chaos

The safehouse kitchen had never been designed with Yuki’s culinary ambitions in mind, a fact made abundantly clear by the small scorch mark now decorating the ceiling directly above the stove.

"Explain to me," Claire said, arms crossed, surveying the damage with the weary patience of someone who’d seen this particular scene unfold more times than she cared to count, "how attempting to make breakfast resulted in a ceiling fire."

"The recipe called for flambé," Yuki said, entirely unrepentant, waving smoke away from his face with a dish towel. "I improvised the technique."

"You do not know what flambé means, do you."

"I have a general impression."

"Your general impression nearly burned down our home, Yuki."

Adian, who’d wisely retreated to the doorway the moment smoke began billowing from the stove, leaned against the frame with obvious amusement. "For what it’s worth, the eggs themselves looked rather promising before the ceiling incident."

"Thank you, Adian. Someone appreciates culinary innovation around here."

"I appreciate chaos generally. It’s rather my aesthetic."

Harriden, entirely unbothered by the commotion, had already produced a bucket of water from somewhere and doused the last stubborn embers clinging to the scorched ceiling tile, expression carrying the particular flatness of someone who found domestic disasters considerably less alarming than the actual battles they regularly survived.

"We’ll need to replace that tile," he observed.

"Add it to the list," Claire muttered. "Right after the window Yuki broke during his ’totally controlled’ indoor sparring demonstration, and the door Adian’s flirting incident cracked when that guard’s brother showed up looking for a fight."

"That last one wasn’t entirely my fault," Adian protested.

"You told him his sister’s fiancé was, and I quote, ’objectively less interesting company than yourself.’"

"I stand by that assessment. It doesn’t make the resulting property damage my responsibility, though."

Kael entered the kitchen mid-argument, drawn by the smell of smoke and the sound of Claire’s increasingly exasperated lecture, finding the scene exactly as chaotic as he’d expected given the noise carrying through the entire safehouse.

"What did I miss?"

"Yuki discovered fire," Sylvia said, following close behind him, surveying the scorched ceiling with the same weary amusement Claire wore. "Again."

"In my defense, the eggs were nearly perfect before the incident."

"There is no version of ’nearly perfect eggs’ that involves setting the ceiling on fire, Yuki."

"You lack vision."

Despite the property damage and the lingering smell of smoke, Kael found himself grinning, the familiar rhythm of the team’s domestic chaos settling something in his chest that months of high-stakes battles against ancient monsters and secret organizations never quite managed to touch. This, more than the fights and the missions, felt like what he’d actually been fighting to protect all along.

"I’ll help patch the ceiling," Kael offered, moving to help Harriden assess the damage properly.

"Appreciated." Harriden glanced sideways at him, something almost fond in his usually reserved expression. "Good to have you back properly, Kael. Songrel clearly agreed with you, but this is still home."

"Yeah," Kael said, meaning it entirely. "It really is."

Claire, having finally wrangled Yuki into cleaning duty as punishment for the fire hazard, joined them at the damaged ceiling tile, inspecting the scorch pattern with professional curiosity despite herself. "You know, if we reinforce this section with some basic fire-resistant warding, we could probably prevent a repeat performance next time Yuki decides to ’improvise’ a cooking technique."

"You say that like there won’t be a next time," Sylvia said.

"There will absolutely be a next time. I’m just trying to minimize the property damage when it happens."

"Wise planning."

The rest of the morning passed in the comfortable rhythm of repair work and continued teasing, Yuki grudgingly scrubbing scorch marks from the counter while Adian supervised with unhelpful commentary, Harriden and Kael patching the damaged ceiling tile with practiced efficiency, Claire sketching out fire-resistant ward patterns for future prevention, and Sylvia overseeing the whole operation with the same calm authority she brought to battlefield strategy.

By midday, the kitchen looked mostly restored, save for a faint smoky smell that would likely linger for days, and the team settled around the salvaged breakfast—considerably plainer than Yuki’s original ambitious vision, but edible and, crucially, fire-free.

"To surviving Yuki’s cooking," Claire said, raising her cup in mock toast.

"To surviving everything, honestly," Kael added, thinking of Songrel, of Paul, of the Sleeping Ruin, of every impossible fight they’d somehow walked away from together. "One ridiculous crisis at a time."

They ate together in comfortable, familiar chaos, the morning’s fire already becoming another shared story to add to the team’s growing collection of increasingly absurd misadventures, and Kael found himself grateful, in the quiet spaces between jokes, for exactly this—ordinary mornings shared with people he’d genuinely come to consider family, however chaotic and fire-prone that family occasionally proved to be.

Later that afternoon, once the kitchen had been fully restored and Yuki’s punishment scrubbing finally deemed sufficient penance, Baldric’s messenger arrived with a summons for the whole team, interrupting what had been shaping up to be a genuinely lazy day off.

"Guild business already?" Yuki groaned, flopping backward onto the common room couch. "We just got back."

"Guild business waits for no one, apparently," Kael said, gathering his things regardless.

"Probably just routine paperwork," Claire offered, though her tone suggested she didn’t fully believe it herself. "Or another festival committee crisis. Baldric’s been swamped rebuilding the capital, maybe he just needs an extra pair of hands somewhere mundane."

"With our luck, it’s never mundane," Sylvia said, already heading for the door.

They made their way toward the guild hall together, the earlier morning’s domestic chaos giving way to the familiar tension of not quite knowing what waited for them, though Kael found himself hoping, quietly, that for once it really might just be paperwork.

"If it’s not paperwork," Yuki said, trotting to keep pace, "I vote we assume it’s something manageable. A rogue slime infestation, maybe. Something we can handle before lunch."

"You say that every time," Claire pointed out, "and every time it’s never a rogue slime infestation."

"Statistically, we’re due for an easy one eventually."

"Statistics don’t work that way, Yuki."

"They do if I believe hard enough."

Kael let their bickering wash over him as familiar background noise, glancing sideways at Sylvia, who offered a small, knowing smile in return. Whatever waited at the guild hall, at least they’d be walking into it together, same as always.

—

End of Chapter—