Divine Milking System-Chapter 73 | I Swear The Sandwich Was My Idea

The dining hall at 11:31 was a different animal than breakfast. Louder. Fuller. The smells competing for dominance in a way that made my stomach loud enough that a passing Emerald kid glanced at me.

I stood at the start of the food line and stared at the options.

The thing about being transmigrated into a death game with a milk-based survival system is that you stop having strong opinions about lunch. You just need calories. Fuel. Something that doesn’t require fifteen minutes of standing in indecision while your endurance stat ticks toward D-rank and your brain is still processing an orange-haired second year who read my entire emotional situation in under four minutes.

Aurora Fitzgerald. Silver tier. Twenty-two percent and climbing.

I pulled my eyes off the mental replay and focused on the food.

Grilled chicken platter. Pasta. A sad-looking beef option that I refused to make eye contact with. Then, at the far end of the deli section, a fresh tray of chicken salad sandwiches on toasted sourdough with a small sign that said "new this week."

I thought about Belle Fox complaining yesterday about the eight-point chip price.

I thought about the way she’d described eating chicken salad sandwiches with chips from a vending machine back in Burns, Oregon, like it was a religious experience.

I grabbed the sandwich.

Then I grabbed a small bowl of grapes because I wasn’t an animal, and a mango iced tea from the drink station because it was there and it looked good. I stood back and looked at my tray.

Chicken salad sandwich. Grapes. Mango iced tea.

Belle was going to lose her mind.

Good.

I spotted them immediately. Naomi had claimed a table near the windows, her pink and black striped hair catching the afternoon light while she worked through what looked like a grain bowl with everything on it, her earlier appetite having apparently recovered from the extraction tax. Jordan sat across from her in full functional coma mode, slouched low in his chair with dark circles under his grey eyes and an untouched plate of food in front of him. His blazer was draped over the back of the chair. His tie was somewhere in the general vicinity of his collar but had stopped caring about accuracy.

Belle sat on Naomi’s left.

She had a chicken salad sandwich.

And a bag of chips.

The same chips. From the vending machine in the East Tower. Jordan’s chips. Two-point chips.

I was halfway to the table when she looked up, and the exact moment her eyes dropped to my tray, her entire face went through five emotions so fast they basically happened simultaneously.

Recognition. Offense. Outrage. Delight. Possession.

"You did NOT," she said.

I sat down across from her and picked up my sandwich. "Good afternoon to you too."

"You got the chicken salad sandwich." She pointed at it like it had personally betrayed her. "I told you about chicken salad sandwiches yesterday." 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

"You mentioned them."

"I told you they were superior. I explained my entire theory. And now you’re sitting here with one like you discovered it yourself."

"Belle." I took a bite. It was genuinely excellent. The ratio of chicken to celery was perfect, the sourdough had actual structural integrity, and there was something in the seasoning that made me close my eyes for half a second. "This is incredible."

"I KNOW," she said, pointing again, "because I have superior taste."

"You also have chips." I nodded at the bag. "Jordan’s chips."

"East Tower. Two points." She ripped the bag open. "Don’t be jealous."

"I’m genuinely happy for you."

"You should be. This is peak lunch architecture." She gestured at her own plate with the authority of someone who had spent serious time thinking about this. "Chicken salad on toasted bread, chips on the side so they stay crispy, nothing touching anything else. You’re welcome, by the way."

"For what?"

"For inspiring your lunch choices with my superior palate."

Naomi looked between us with the patient expression of someone watching a nature documentary. Jordan hadn’t moved. His food was still untouched. I couldn’t tell if he was breathing.

"Jordan," I said.

"Present," he said, without opening his eyes.

"Your food is getting cold."

"Food is a concept."

Belle reached over and pushed his plate closer to him without breaking eye contact with me. Jordan’s hand found a fork on pure autopilot and he started eating without waking up.

Naomi smiled at me across the table, small and warm. She had her shell necklace on and the braid I’d done this morning was still holding, mostly. A few strands had escaped around her face. She looked better than she had at breakfast, the grain bowl clearly helping, the color back in her cheeks.

She’d showered again. I could tell from the way her hair was sitting.

She was wearing my soap again too.

I picked up a grape.

"I ran into someone on my walk," I said.

Belle’s attention sharpened. She put down her chip. "Who."

"Second year. Aurora Fitzgerald."

Naomi’s head came up. "The orange-haired one? From Obsidian?"

"That’s her."

"She’s ranked twenty-three," Belle said immediately. "Silver rank. Known for sensory manipulation. Uses twin daggers. Has never not been in the top thirty since she started here. She’s also terrifying." She paused. "And she’s stunning."

"Agreed on both."

Belle’s eyes narrowed slightly. "How long did you talk to her."

"Long enough." I took another bite of the sandwich. "She walked me back toward the dining hall. We talked about weapons, money, ability strategy."

"She just walked up to you and started talking."

"I walked into her. Literally."

Jordan opened one eye. "Walked into Aurora Fitzgerald."

"Yes."

"And she didn’t end you."

"She gave me a piece of candy and her number."

Both eyes opened. He looked at me with the expression of someone running calculations. "The candy means she liked you. She only gives candy to people she finds interesting." He closed his eyes again. "Dangerous development."

"How do you know that," Naomi said.

"I read the upperclassman profiles during orientation. Filed under people who can cause large problems."