In my previous life, I died in a kitchen.
It was a three-Michelin-star rush on a Saturday night in Paris. The heat was 45^\circ\text{C}, the air was thick with the scent of reduced veal stock, and my heart decided it had clocked its last shift. My final vision was a perfectly seared scallop. My final thought was: The butter was a second too late.
Then, there was the void. And then, there was the cold.
I woke up face-down in a patch of grey, frozen mud. My lungs burned with air that tasted of sulfur and iron. I wasn't in Paris. I wasn't even in my own body. I was younger, leaner, and my hands were covered in a strange, blue-black ink that pulsed beneath the skin.
[System Initializing...]
[Core Soul Detected: Master Chef (Rank S)]
[Incompatible Vessel Detected: Necromancer (Rank F)]
[Merging Systems...]
[New Class Found: The Culinary Sovereign]
"Necromancer?" I rasped, my voice sounding like gravel in a blender.
I looked around. I was in a wasteland. To the east, the horizon was choked by the black smoke of industrial slave-mines—the territory of the Gilded Chain Consortium. To the west, the "First World" stretched out in a jagged mess of monsters and ruins.
I was a man who lived for the "Mise en Place"—everything in its place. And this world was a disorganized disaster.
The First Summon
I was starving. My stomach felt like it was trying to digest itself. I saw a small, dead mountain hare a few feet away, its neck snapped by some predator that hadn't bothered to finish the job.
I reached out, driven by an instinct I didn't understand. The blue ink on my hands flared.
"I need a prep-cook," I whispered.
The earth cracked. A small, pathetic skeleton, barely three feet tall and missing its left fibula, crawled out of the frozen dirt. It looked at me with empty sockets.
[Skill Unlocked: Raise Minor Undead (Rank F)]
"Listen to me," I told the skeleton. "We are going to eat. I need you to skin that hare. Cleanly. If you puncture the scent glands, I'll send you back to hell."
The skeleton tilted its head, then blurred into motion. It didn't have a knife, so it used its own sharpened fingerbones. It moved with a mechanical, eerie efficiency. Within minutes, the hare was skinned and gutted.
"Good," I muttered. "Now... we need fire."
Meeting the Pack
That night, the smell of roasted hare—even without salt—attracted more than just scavengers.
I was sitting by a small blaze when three shadows crested the ridge. They were huge, emaciated, and their eyes glowed with a desperate, feral hunger. Werewolves. But they weren't the noble beasts of legend; they were broken. One had a rusted iron shackle fused into his neck.
"Human," the largest one growled. This was Jasper. His fur was the color of dirty snow. "That meat. Give it to us, and we might let you die quickly."
I didn't flinch. I was a Chef. I had dealt with angry line cooks, screaming owners, and drunk critics. A werewolf was just another hungry customer.
"You're Jasper, aren't you?" I asked, basting the hare with its own fat using a makeshift brush of pine needles. "The shackle on your neck... it's Consortium iron. It's been there so long the skin has grown over it. It must itch like a demon."
Jasper froze. "How do you know my name?"
"I don't. But you have 'Jasper' etched into that collar," I pointed with my bone-knife. "I'm Arthur. And you don't want to kill me. You're starving. Your pack is starving. If you eat me, you eat for an hour. if you join me, you never go hungry again."
"Why would we follow a bone-wizard?" the female, Amber, snarled. She was limping, her hind leg caught in a trap that had left a permanent scar.
"Because," I said, carving a piece of the hare and tossing it to her. "I'm the only man in this godforsaken world who knows that the secret to loyalty isn't a chain. It's the Maillard Reaction."
She caught the meat. Her eyes widened. It was perfectly cooked—crispy skin, juicy interior. It was the first time she had eaten anything that wasn't raw, bloody, and cold.
"The Consortium treats you like dogs," I said, standing up. My skeleton stood beside me, holding its little skinning knife. "I will treat you like the foundation of a kingdom. We'll start with this ridge. We'll call it Nova Roma. And the first thing we're going to do... is get that collar off your neck."
The First Territory
For the next month, we lived in a cave. It was the "Soft Opening" of my reign.
I used my Necromancy to raise more skeletons—not for war, but for Infrastructure.
One skeleton stayed in the cave, constantly stirring a pot of "Eternal Stock" made from bones and wild roots.
Two others were sent to find flat stones for grinding.
The werewolves became my "Sourcing Team." They hunted, and I taught them how to bring back the meat un-bruised.
I realized the Gilded Chain was the local "Supplier" of misery. They controlled the only salt spring in the region. To beat them, I needed a better product.
I spent my nights studying the ink on my arms. The system allowed me to "devour" the traits of what I cooked.
I cooked a Swift-Foot Deer, and gained [Linear Acceleration].
I cooked a Thorn-Back Lizard, and gained [Dermal Armor].
By the time the events of Chapter One rolled around, I wasn't just a cook. I was a Tier-1 Sovereign with a staff of twelve skeletons who could filet a fish in four seconds flat.
I had freed Jasper from his collar using a skeleton's precision and a heated obsidian blade. I had healed Amber's leg with a broth made from Glow-Moss and Marrow.
They weren't my pets. They were my first Citizens.
And then, the Consortium's Ledger finally realized his "property" wasn't just missing—it was starting a competing business.
[System Milestone: The Kitchen is Prepped]
[Territory Established: Nova Roma (Level 1)]
[Arthur's Goal: To serve a meal so good the world forgets how to hate.]