Chapter 159: No, no, no. I got this
Isabella stood over the pig with the expression of someone who had just been told she needed to sacrifice her favorite silk heels for a puddle stomp contest. Her hands were daintily poised near her chest, elbows in, and eyes locked on the dead animal with a mix of horror and dramatic flair. Cyrus stood to the side, holding a sharpened bone knife, looking genuinely conflicted.
"You can do it," Bubu’s voice echoed faintly from the dark screen by the tree. The system had long since dimmed, probably hiding from the wrathful glare Isabella shot it earlier.
She turned to Cyrus, face solemn. "Gimme the knife."
He hesitated, then handed it over with gentle caution, like he was passing her a baby bird. "Are you sure? I can—"
"No," Isabella said firmly, wagging her finger side to side. Her voice trembled with pretend strength, like a princess about to storm a battlefield in heels. "This is my trial. My glow-up journey. My stone-age villain origin story."
Cyrus didn’t fully understand what she was saying, but he nodded with the concerned attentiveness of a supportive partner watching someone have a meltdown over a split end.
She stared down at the pig. The mud-caked creature lay on the flat stone slab like it had given up on life long before she got here. Her lip curled as she crouched daintily beside it, lifting the knife like it was a spoon in a soup tasting.
She tapped the pig’s belly. "Okay, you chunky demon, where’s your fat hiding?" she whispered. "Let’s be civil about this."
Then she looked at the knife, then the pig, then the knife again. "Cyrus," she whispered, without taking her eyes off the corpse, "where do I start?"
He stepped forward slightly. "I can show—"
She flailed one hand backward, keeping the other poised with the knife. "No, no, no. I got this. I watched one hunting lesson. That’s enough."