Baby System: I'm the Beast World's Only Hope!-Chapter 122: Episode : The Process of Making Ice-cream.
"Ice cream," Roxy repeated, grabbing Kaelen’s shirt. "I need it. I need a bowl of vanilla ice cream. Right now. Or I am going to die."
"Ice..." Kaelen scratched his head. "Cream? Like... frozen milk?"
"Yes!" Roxy nodded frantically. "With sugar! And it has to be soft! And cold! Go get it!"
"Roxy," Zarek said slowly, "I have never had that before. We have milk. But we do not have... ’ice cream’."
Roxy’s face fell. Her lower lip started to wobble. The tears were coming back.
"But I want it!" she wailed. "I can taste it! Why can’t I have it?!"
"We will find it!" Torian shouted immediately, terrified of the tears returning. "I will invent it!"
Torian looked at the others with wide, panicked eyes.
"What in the name of the Beast God is Ice Cream?!"
"You..." Roxy’s voice trembled, her lower lip quivering like a leaf in a storm. "You don’t know what it is."
She looked at Kaelen, hoping the resourceful Wolf knew. He shook his head slowly. She looked at Syris, and he looked blank. She looked at Zarek. The Dragon just looked helpless.
The realization hit her with the force of a physical blow.
No ice cream.
Well, duh, it’s the beastworld. How are they going to get ice cream?
In this entire world of shifting beasts and impossible wonders, there was no Ben & Jerry’s. There was no soft serve. There was no cold, sugary comfort to soothe the burning fire under her skin.
"It’s over," Roxy whispered, her eyes dulling.
She turned away from them, her shoulders slumping in absolute defeat. She shuffled back toward her nest of towels, clutching a pillow to her chest.
"I’m going to bed," she sniffled, a tear tracking through the dust on her cheek. "I’m just going to sleep until the baby comes. Or until I starve. Whichever happens first."
She looked so small, so pathetic, and so utterly devastated that it triggered a panic response in the four Alpha males that was usually reserved for catastrophic clan wars.
"No!"
Torian moved faster than his shadow. He leaped across the room, intercepting her before she could collapse into the towels. He grabbed her by the shoulders, turning her to face him. His blue eyes were wide, frantic, and filled with a desperate determination.
He wanted to show her that he was truly needed.
"Do not go back to the nest!" Torian pleaded. "Do not give up, Roxy! It is just food! We are Kings! We rule the forest! We rule the mountains!"
He shook her gently.
"Even if we do not know what this... ’Ice Cream’ is," Torian vowed, his voice rising with passion, "we can create it! You have the knowledge! Teach us!"
He looked at the other three.
"Tell us what to do, and we will move the earth to make it. If you need milk, we will drain a herd! Just... Please don’t cry again."
Roxy blinked. She looked at Torian’s desperate face.
Teach them?
A spark lit up in her brain. She didn’t have to find it. She could make it.
The despair vanished instantly. Roxy straightened up. She wiped the tear from her cheek with the back of her hand. A smile, slightly unhinged and glowing with pregnancy hormones, spread across her face.
"You’ll do whatever it takes?" Roxy asked, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper.
"Anything," Syris confirmed, stepping forward. "Just name what you need."
"Okay," Roxy breathed. She clapped her hands together. "Okay! We’re doing this. Operation Sundae is a go."
She began to pace the room. Her mind raced.
Ingredients. I need ingredients.
"Milk," Roxy listed, counting on her fingers. "I need milk. The fattiest, creamiest milk you can find. Not the watery stuff. I need the stuff that clots."
"The Horned Cows in the West Valley," Kaelen nodded immediately. "Their milk is like what you describe. I can fetch a pail in twenty minutes."
"Good. Eggs," Roxy continued. "I need yolks. To make it rich."
"Bird eggs?" Zarek suggested.
"No! Too big! Just... normal chicken eggs!" Roxy waved her hand. "And Ice. Lots of ice."
"Syris can take care of that," Zarek stated simply.
"Okay, now the hard part," Roxy muttered, stopping her pacing.
She bit her thumbnail.
Sugar. Vanilla.
She knew the Beast World had honey. They had sweet fruits. But she didn’t want honey ice cream. She wanted Vanilla. She wanted that specific, artificial, chemical-tasting white sugar that hit the bloodstream like a drug.
And she needed vanilla extract—the dark, aromatic liquid that didn’t exist in this forest. Without those, it would just be frozen egg-milk. And that was disgusting.
Roxy froze. Her eyes narrowed. She stared at the empty air in front of her.
System, she thought, her internal voice sounding like a growl.
There was no response.
Listen to me, you glitchy little box. If you don’t give me a way to get Vanilla Extract and White Refined Sugar right now, I am going to pull my own heart out of my chest and die right here on this rug.
She meant it. The pregnancy hormones made the threat feel completely viable.
Whoa, whoa, girl, you are the only one wanting to die.
But Roxy didn’t want to die; it was just her pregnancy that behaved this way.
I will die of sadness, she threatened. And then your precious ’Basilisk Legacy’ dies with me. Do you want that? Do you want the mission to end because of a lack of flavoring?
Somewhere in the System, there was a panic. The "Goddess of Fertility" likely elbowed the "God of Plot Progression" in the ribs.
[Ding!]
[SYSTEM ALERT: HOST DISTRESS DETECTED]
[Emergency Override Activated]
[The Gods are concerned for your mental stability.]
[Opening: The Inter-Dimensional Pantry]
A list of items scrolled before her eyes. It was groceries.
Premium Vanilla Extract (100ml) - 50,000 LP
Refined Cane Sugar (1kg) - 10,000 LP
Heavy Whipping Cream (Pasteurized) - 20,000 LP
Rock Salt (For churning) - 5,000 LP
Roxy didn’t even look at the prices. She had millions of LPs from the Mating Season. She was rich. She was the Jeff Bezos of the Stone Age.
Buy, Roxy commanded. Buy all of it.
[Transaction Complete: -85,000 LP]
With a soft pop, several items materialized out of the void and landed gently on the rumpled sheets.
A glass bottle filled with a dark, amber liquid. A heavy paper sack filled with a white, granular powder. A large bag of jagged, grey rocks (salt). A carton of heavy cream (which looked strangely out of place).
Roxy let out a squeal of delight that sounded slightly demonic. She snatched up the vanilla bottle, uncorking it and taking a deep sniff.
"Oh, sweet mother of beans," she moaned, her eyes rolling back in her head. "That’s the stuff."
She turned to her mates.
They were staring.
"What..." Syris stepped closer, not understanding how the things just appeared out of thin air, sniffing the air. "What is that scent? It smells like... a flower, but deeper. Like wood and candy."
"This," Roxy declared, holding the bottle up like a holy relic, "is Vanilla. It is the flavor of happiness."
She pointed to the white bag. "And that is Sugar. Not honey. Pure, crystallized ones."
She grabbed the items and shoved them into Torian’s arms. He fumbled, barely catching the glass bottle.
"Here is the plan!" Roxy barked, clapping her hands like a sergeant. "Kaelen, get the cow milk. Zarek, get a metal pot and a larger wooden bucket. We need to do the nesting method. Pot inside the bucket. Ice and this salt"—she pointed to the bag of rocks—"goes in the gap."
She turned to Syris.
"Syris, you have the best stamina and the steadiest hands. You have to mix the liquid constantly while it freezes. If you stop, it gets icy. I don’t want it to be icy. I want something creamy. You must mix like your life depends on it."
Syris looked at his hands, then at the invisible whisk she was miming. "I... mix?"
"Yes! Circular motions! Constant velocity!"
Roxy was panting now, her face flushed with excitement. She looked at them, her chest heaving.
"Well?" she demanded. "Why are you standing there?"
The four men didn’t move. They were staring at the items in Torian’s arms.
They looked at the glass bottle with the strange label. They looked at the perfectly white, unnatural sand in the bag. They looked at the carton of cream that felt cold to the touch.
Roxy’s anxiety spiked.
Her smile faltered. Her chin started to tremble again.
"Why aren’t you moving?" she whined, "Is it too hard? You don’t want to go? You think I’m crazy?"
She sniffled, looking at the floor.
"I knew it. You guys don’t love me enough to milk a cow. It’s fine. I’ll just sleep." 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮
"Roxy," Zarek interrupted. He raised an eyebrow, a small, amused smirk touching his lips.
"Is that all?"
