The kitchen of the Layver Family’s mansion had been lively even before the sunrise. The chefs were running around the place, with Calary ordered them.

"Tomorrow is our last day to prepare everything. The faster the better—we have to get everything settled before the party started!"

Calary sliced the spicies with inhumane speed and precision. One time, she had a whole garlic in hand. In a blink, the garlic had became a beautiful slices of garlic.

While not as skilled as Calary, the other chefs also do their best. The sounds of cutting from the knives and the cutting tables were like a drum in the the harmony of this place—rhythmic, and non-stop.

"Madam, the soups are ready!" Yelled one of the chefs.

Calary quickly finished what she had in her hands and rushed toward him. Her movement were swift, but not looked restless. She looked more like a dancer that was dancing the melody, fluid, effortless, but fast. She never crashed with the chefs while she was moving around.

She tasted the soup, blowing it first on the spoon before she scooped a mouthful. Her eyes narrowed. "No, it’s not ready yet. Let it boil for at least 10 more minutes and give it some more salt."

""O-oh, yes!"" The chefs replied uniformly.

Then the rhythm continued.

Theo and Tizmilly entered the kitchen after the sun was peeking through the horizon. Tizmilly immediately went to help Calary, but Theo scrathed his head while yawing. He looked more tired than the day before, maybe because of he hadn’t had enough sleep last night.

The moment Calary noticed him, she immediately threw some cloth sacks toward him. "Theo, bring more potatoes, tomatoes, and other vegetables!"

Theo catched the sacks. He looked down at them before looking around the kitchen. The exhaustion from yesterday still hadn’t recovered yet, but seeing how busy they were, Theo nodded and went to the basement to take more supplies.

The door leading to the basement was built at the kitchen itself. After he opened the door, a downward staircase greeted Theo. Inside was more spacious than anyone could expect. There were four separate rooms inside, excluding the open area that used to store barrel of wines. Vegetables, meats, monster meats, and spicies. They were all being separated according to their types.

Once Theo opened the door of the vegetables room, cold air immediately released from inside, envelloping him. It was the effect of a magical machine that was created based on ice magic to cool the air. At first, it was useless and couldn’t properly lower the temperature of a small room, but after human found the utility of the elemetal gems, someone tried to use Frost gem as the machine new fuel, and voila! They invented a portable freezer.

The cold air made Theo’s sleepy body shudder. The urge to snuggle back into his bed rose inside him, but he knew that he couldn’t be as unrestrained as that in other’s house, and he also still had a job, so be endured it while taking the vegetables inside into the sacks. In the end, he got twelve sacks of vegetables. Fortunately, he could nulify the influence of gravity with his magic, so the workload was still manageable for him.

After he carried these sacks up to his mother and others, Theo washed his face and went to the yard. Gerena, Sirry, and the other maids were coming today along. And with Ivandel and Karr, of course.

Theo had to wait about thirty minutes before the carriages that had gone to fetch them since the morning arrived. He spent the time stretching and shadowboxxing before his restaurant’s staff finally all gathered in the mansion.

All of them had bags filled with clothes with them. It was a proof that Carole had informed them well. They had to stay in the mansion until the party ended, so they would need that.

"Alright, everyone, attention please!" Theo shouted, gathering the staff who were exclaiming at how grand the mansion was.

"Ivandel and Karr, you two will help the knights and me cleaning up the back garden. While Gerena, Sirry, Davina, Marie, Rasa, and Yona—you have to split into two groups. To help in the kitchen, or to help the servants cleaning the mansion and arranging the decoration."

Gerena, Rasa, Marie, and Yona prefered helping the servants in the mansion than cooking in the kitchen, while Sirry and Davina were going to help Calary and Tizmilly in the kitchen.

The work was immediately started after they stored their bags inside their respective rooms. 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

Like a colony of ants, the mansion worked in a silent, composed, but swift manner. All to achieve one shared goal: to success the party!

The day was going to be a busy, good day!

...

But they didn’t realize that there were people who were watching everything from a far away place through the eyes of some of the servants.

Just as busy, they moved quickly. Seven of them were sent to the kitchen, while ten of them focused to eliminate their former comrade, Jahreon. Their steps matched the swift, dutiful steps of the servants, but they carried knives imbued with dark mana hidden in their uniforms.

The first to move was the group that was assigned to cause chaos by attacking the kitchen.

The male knights that were positioned before the door noticed their approach. The sight of seven men and women walking toward them in such a stiffy manner, and with such blank faces indeed felt off, but since they knew their faces, they failed to sense the hidden danger. They greeted them as usual, thinking that the kitchen called them because they needed more personnel. However, what greeted them back were not smiles, but knives.

A too-wide-smirk appeared on the face of the man who had just stabbed the knight.

"Now, the time to show these oblivious people the consequences of their actions has come!" He laughed as he kicked the door open violently.

As they raised their knives, their panicked shouts and yells could even be hear a hundred meters away from the kitchen.

Theo’s ears perked.

’The kitchen...!’

His eyes widened, his eyebrows knitted deep.

Slower than Theo, but Ivandel also heard the shouts not long after that. He glanced at the mansion confusedly.

"Are they throwing a party?" He muttered curiously.

When he returned to his job though, he realized that Theo was no longer there.

"Eh?"

Near the back garden, a maid of the Layver Family was hanging the laundry on the poles. She hummed melodic hums when she turned her back to the poles to grab another cloth.

But then a violent wind stormed past her. The maid shouted panickedly, surprised as she fell to her knees. And when she turned around to look at her behind and noticed that the freshly washed laundry was now on the ground, all dirty, she felt the urge to cry.

The violent wind was created by Theo. Not purposedly, but it was an inevitable cause if he used Levitation to redirect his gravity vector in order to raise his speed.

He arrived at the kitchen in no time. When he stopped at the entrance and looked at the dying knights, his face became grim.

’Were the mind-controlled servants did this? Mom, Tizmilly...!’

While silently hoping for his closests’ safety, Theo stormed into the kitchen.

"Mom—" He was just about to yell, but he stopped himself.

He froze in place, his eyes widened.

It was because...

He saw Calary raised a man with one hand on the throat before she slammed him on the floor very hard that the man instantly lost his consiousness.

Theo looked around, still shocked, and noticed that there were seven of them. Most of them had been taken down, but one of them was still fighting Tizmilly at the moment. The woman was swinging her knife violently, while Tizmilly used a pan to block and counter her attack.

"What happened, what happened here?" The woman muttered, her voice flat. "It was not supposed to turned out like this!"

The woman raised her knife, about to swing down, but then Calary grabbed her collar from behind. She choked and was pulled away from Tizmilly. She wanted to counterattack Calary, but she slammed her down to the floor before she could do that. Which also made the woman lost her consciousness, just like the others.

Theo looked at his mother, his mouth hanged open.

"M-mom?" He called out.

Calary clapped her palms to clean the dust off. She tilted her head, smiling as she turned to Theo. "Hm?"

At the corner, Davina, who was holding the unconscious Sirry, muttered with a sparkling face: "The madam is so strong..."

...

Meanwhile, at the second floor.

The ten others of the mind-controlled servants were quickly walking toward Jahreon’s room.

The knights immediately sensed that something was wrong with them. After all, all of the servants were forbidden from approaching Jahreon’s room.

"Halt!" The female knight, Henna, who was the commander of the knights, placed her palm on her sword as she strengthen her stance. "What are you doing here? This area is forbidden!"

The ten servants showed their smiles and slower their pace.

"The lady ordered..."